Shah Mat
by goodfella-of-avos
Summary: Merlin has been busy with regrouping Kingsman and making sure the world isn't threatened by another madman for more than a year. And it works out well enough, he thinks, so perhaps everything is going to settle down soon. When a hitman nearly kills him one night, it's time to reconsider. Unfortunately, it's pretty much downhill from there for the most part.
1. Chapter 1: An Incident

**a/n:** whole work has been re-written over the last few months & i will try updating again.

* * *

 _If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something._

Murphy's Laws

He was glad for the soothing darkness that greeted him when he opened the door to his apartment. It eased the headache pounding in the back of his skull, although he was still feeling like someone was driving nails into his brain and simultaneously setting it on fire.

Slowly, he stepped inside the flat and pulled the door as quietly as possible shut behind him.

The clicking of the noise was still as loud as a gunshot, making him flinch.

Pain flared up, intense enough to leave him breathless for a moment.

He shouldn't have neglected nearly every basic human need up to the point where he wanted to lay down and hope he wasn't going to wake up for the next week, yes, but work kept piling up and someone _had to_ do it.

Even now, when he was so tired that he could barely stand, he would rather be at his desk in the headquarters than at home – or in a bed there, since he couldn't help but worry he was too far away, that he wouldn't make it back in time if there was an emergency. There had been plenty of emergencies in the last weeks.

But Eggsy and Roxy had insisted and it was hard to argue with them, especially if their arguments had seemed quite plausible at the time. They still did, certainly, and he wasn't the kind of man to deny these things, yet …

Merlin sighed, closing his eyes for a moment, the black swallowing him whole, and as long as he didn't think, it didn't hurt as much, he noted, but not-thinking was something he simply couldn't do, couldn't allow himself to do. In particular not, since he had taken over the duties of Arthur.

It had been supposed to be temporary … temporarily unlimited until they agreed on a successor for Chester, which they still hadn't one and a half years after his death – it was always just another mission, another job that had to be done immediately, and then another week had gone by, another month, with no room to breathe, with no end in sight.

The tensions sparked by the betrayal itself didn't help either.

And … he still didn't understand. Perhaps he was never going to. And perhaps he should leave it at that because there were no answers to be found in the dark of his own apartment in the middle of the night.

Still – he had been confident that he could judge people accordingly. He had known Chester for nearly half his life. Yet, he had been so wrong about this man; yet, he hadn't noticed he would betray them; yet, he had never even considered that he could have been responsible for Harry's death.

Sighing, he shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose.

For now, he needed to sleep.

Merlin took off his jacket and shoes, walking further into the room, not bothering with the lights. His head wouldn't thank him for it, neither would his eyes, and he knew his way around well enough to rely on his memory.

The parquet silently creaked beneath his steps.

But … there weren't only his.

Adrenaline rushed through his veins. He-

Knife on his throat. He froze.

Why hadn't he- why hadn't the alarm gone off?

"I hope you know how this works," the intruder said. "Save your bullshit and give me a straight answer or I'll cut your throat."

Their voice was muffled, nearly drowned out by the frantic beating of his heart.

The blade swallowed the bright city lights. Fear replaced the rush of energy he had felt seconds ago.

"Let's start easy," they continued slowly. "Who are the other Kingsmen?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Merlin stated.

"Really?" they asked, the sarcasm dripping from their words. "I mean this secret, exclusive spy agency that's really into discretion? Founded by tailors, agents running around in these fancy suits you British love so much, the stereotype gentlemen who can kick ass?"

He didn't answer.

"Doesn't ring a bell?" There … yes, there was confusion now and it sounded genuine enough that he believed it was real, but … it didn't fit. They seemed to be a professional. Professionals didn't mistake a target for another.

"No," he answered after a moment, his stomach twisting in agony.

"Don't fuck with me, _Merlin_ ," they said. He could hear the smug smile. "I know what Kingsman is. I know who you are. Now, give me the real names of the other agents."

He should have known better.

Analysis it was then.

His attacker had a knife, holding it to his throat. Probably more weapons. Definitely experience in situations like this.

He was at disadvantage and in a bad condition, so if he did anything, he better did it quickly.

A plan … he still had his-

His glasses. Right. And since they were transmitting the recordings right back to the headquarters, somebody had hopefully already alerted Eggsy and Roxy who had to be nearby.

"Oh, come on," the stranger said. "Hurry up already."

They … were smaller than him, judging from the way their arm pressed against his back.

First, he had to get rid of that knife.

Grabbing their arm wasn't going to end well, neither was moving too much in general. Unless … he could move backwards, make them stumble, just … well, if he hit the liver …

Gradually, he raised his arm.

Merlin waited for a moment when he had brought it up to the right height.

"Swallowed your tongue?" they asked with a sigh, moving the blade closer.

He tilted his head back, tensing with a shaky breath.

Then he shoved his arm back. His elbow connected.

The knife hit the ground with a rattle.

He whirled around.

They were staggering backwards.

"Asshole," they muttered, catching themselves too fast, already leaping forward, hand curled into fist, going for his face.

He stopped the attack with surprisingly little-

A painful blow to his calf caused him to lose balance. His opponent kneed him in the stomach, making him double over on the floor when he went down.

Shit.

Even if he was twenty years younger, he wouldn't have been able to keep up with that speed.

Merlin stood up, launching himself forward, aiming at their temple.

They deflected the punch with their forearm, hitting his chin and forcing it back so hard he forgot to breathe.

He stumbled. An elbow connected with his chest. Something cut through his suit.

They withdrew. He regained his stand, panting, catching sight of … a dagger in their hand.

The knife was still on the floor.

He took a step in their direction, managing to catch their wrist, increasing the pressure on the nerve under his fingers. As expected, the weapon slit from their hand.

Next he knew was that he landed on the ground, the impact making him black out from the pain.

Heavy. On his chest.

They smashed his head against the floor. He groaned.

Metal against his throat. Knife. Cutting into his skin. Safety clicking off. Gun.

He stopped moving. His sight cleared.

The stranger sat on his chest, knee planted besides him, knife in one hand and gun in the other.

"One last chance," they … no, she warned. "Give me the real names of the other Kingsmen and I might shoot you _before_ I cut off your head." She had a faint accent.

"Lovely," he muttered. "What if I refuse?"

"I cut off your head while you're still alive," she said dryly.

Indeed, a lovely choice.

"So?" she questioned, pressing the knife deeper into his skin until blood trickled down.

"If you kill me, you won't get your information," he warned her, eyes on the blade.

"Because it isn't like there are other agents I can have a nice talk with, right?" she replied with a snort.

"They are trained," he said, although he could barely speak. "They'll kill you."

"Like you?" she retorted, clearly amused. "That would make my job so much easier."

Merlin bit his tongue.

One sudden movement and he would dead. Or paralysed from the neck down. Both were things he'd like to avoid.

Someone was picking a lock. The lock on his door.

Her head snapped up while she tightened the grip on her weapons.

"Merlin," Roxy said over the glasses. "Merlin, hang on, we're nearly there." Her voice was barely a whisper.

The woman above him bit her lip.

The door sprang open.

Merlin grabbed her waist, shoving her.

She cursed, damping the fall with her hands. Then she was back on her feet, shooting.

He rolled away from her, putting a knee to the floor, before attempting to push himself up. Everything was spinning.

He stayed on the ground, looking up. There were the two agents, both of them hunched behind an umbrella for cover.

Dagger – _flying_ dagger, piercing the ground inches away from them with an ugly noise.

The woman turned around towards him, aiming her gun.

Shot.

Hissing, she dropped to her knees.

Eggsy was now leaping at her her for an attack, but she bolted from her position, another dagger in her hands. The agent dodged; she kept attacking.

Roxy knelt down next to him.

"You okay?" she whispered. "You're bleeding." She pointed to his throat.

He touched the injury, barely noticing the cut in his skin.

"Yes," he answered, nodding, his gaze wandering back to the fight.

Eggsy had trouble standing his ground against the woman, struggling with the speed, brutality, and unconventionality of her style.

The other agent gave him a glance, before getting up. Cautiously, she approached the stranger from behind.

She dodged the attack, stepping to the side, before whirling around and hitting Roxy's stomach.

Eggsy targeted her hip with a kick. His foot connected, causing her to lose balance.

She fell to the ground and … she was trembling, when she got back up, but her right leg was giving in under her.

"Fucking-"

Merlin narrowed his eyes, slowly pushing himself into a standing position.

His friends had already gotten closer, cutting off any way to escape, since the woman's back was to the wall.

"Surrender," Eggsy demanded, his voice firm and confident.

Merlin wasn't so sure about it. It could be an act. It certainly would be an unusual one, especially for someone with such skills, but it was a possibility – she was so good, he couldn't imagine her failing.

"Yeah, right," she snapped. She tried standing straighter. Instead, she fell into a coughing fit, clutching the fabric of her shirt with one hand.

It … didn't make sense.

The two agents exchanged a short glance before leaping into action.

The woman dodged the first hit, bringing herself in direct line of Roxy's punch. It sent her staggering backwards.

She ended up collapsing.

Eggsy first looked at her, then at his friend, then at him.

Carefully, Merlin took a few steps towards the unconscious woman, kneeling down next to her, expecting _something_ , but there wasn't anything. Her pulse was … weak, weaker than it was supposed to be, and her skin too cold.

He rose to his feet, turning around to the other two agents with a small sigh.

"Let's get her to the headquarters," he said. They nodded.


	2. Chapter 2: Deals

The bed felt different. Harder. Smaller. No one next to her. No headache.

She bolted upright, her eyes snapping open.

Bright. Way too bright. Everything spun. She was going to be sick.

Groaning, she laid back down, putting an arm over her eyes and focusing on breathing only. It didn't really help, because there was still the nausea and the spinning and her thoughts didn't make much more sense and her memories were a hazy mess.

Fuck. What had she gotten herself into?

She should be at the hotel, in her bed, not … somewhere else, not in this shape, and surely not without being able to recall how she had ended up here. Stuff like that could get her killed. Or worse. Probably worse.

At least she wasn't restrained.

Slowly, she drew in another deep breath, blinking a few times while gradually lowering her arm. It was as bad as it had been the first time – her eyes hurt and she had to narrow them so hard a pounding settled behind her temples, but this time she managed to properly sit up and look around.

It was all a bit blurry, like always.

The room she was in seemed to belong to a hospital – white walls, little decoration. Plain. Cold. Machines.

Her muscles were trembling and she wasn't too eager to find out why, since all the answers were going to be unpleasant.

She shook her head, running a hand through her hair.

By now, she usually remembered what she had been doing last night. The fact that she didn't was … concerning.

For one, she knew her condition couldn't suddenly have gone so bad she needed medical help, because she'd be screaming then. Or crying. Or both, honestly.

Drumming her fingers against the blanket, she tilted back her head, closing her eyes.

It … she felt like she had been doing something important. Like, actually important, like a hit or something, not just having a few drinks too many – which wasn't that unlikely and it wouldn't be the first time she suffered an alcohol poisoning.

She … had been in England, yes, and-

Fuck. _Fuck_.

How the fuck could she have forgotten about that job? It was one of those she had thought to be a joke at first, the ones you've only got offered once in your life, and she hadn't been too sure whether to laugh or chuck a whole bottle of vodka, but as it turned out, a secret service kinda based on the legends of King Arthur was a real thing. Here at least.

The client had demanded she started with this one guy. Merlin.

He hadn't been that difficult to handle, neither had been these two kids who showed up – until one of them _just had to_ kick her scar and, of fucking course, the morphine _just had to_ wear off right then too.

" _Derr'mo_ ," she hissed, clenching her hands into fists and trying to keep breathing deeply.

She had passed out on a job. Surrounded by the enemy. Jack was _so_ going to skin her alive, if she didn't herself first – it was usually a death sentence itself when being a hitman, if not a sign for torture though she didn't feel that tortured yet. Sure, there were her thoughts and too loud voices in the back of her head, but she had always been good at suppressing them and that was exactly what she was doing right now.

So, then … she wasn't in a hospital, was she? Amazing. Absolutely fucking amazing.

She folded back the blanket, swinging her legs out of bed, stopping dead.

Someone had put her into one of those ugly things people were required to wear in clinics and she was going to find them and kill them.

Shaking her head, she stood up, the floor cold beneath her feet. More importantly – no pain, no twitching, no trembling.

Once more, she glanced around the room, this time specifically looking for something that could serve as a weapon. There was only a pillow and she guessed, in the worst case, she could suffocate someone with it if she didn't manage choking them with her bare hands or anything.

Slowly, she set into motion, walking towards the door.

It opened.

She recognized the man who entered. Merlin. He wore another suit, dark blue, carrying a clipboard.

There was a frown on his face when their gazes met and he kept close to the door after he had closed it behind him.

She glared at him, crossing her arms.

"You shouldn't be moving," he told her.

"You shouldn't be alive, but here we are," she retorted, shifting her weight to her left leg, hoping – despite her client's wishes – he'd spontaneously combust.

He didn't. His frown only grew deeper and he studied her for a moment without ever breaking eye contact and it was making her uneasy.

"There is something you might want to see," he said then.

"I don't think you know what I want to see," she replied with arched eyebrows. The only thing she'd like to see was her boss.

"I said _might_ ," he replied, his expression turning dark for a brief moment, but there was no anger in his voice – he was still all calm and stern and she didn't know what to do about that.

Merlin turned his attention to the clipboard that, apparently, wasn't one, considering he was tapping on it like it was a phone or something.

The dark screen to her left lit up, displaying a news report.

The anchor was blonde, probably in her late thirties, not entirely unattractive.

"The explosion that occurred two days ago in London is still going unsolved," she announced. They showed a picture in the background. Hotel. Shady. Big ball of fire coming from one of the windows, engulfing the whole east wing.

"The incident happened in the early morning," she went on. "The fire destroyed most of the rooms on the eastern side. For now, the damage is estimated to be roughly four hundred thousand pounds." Right. Weird country, weird currency. "The police has yet to release a statement. However, the hotel's security footage which was recovered could provide a hint."

Now there was a black and white video on screen. Blurry. Could be showing a woman entering, walking up to the reception, and leaving.

"If you recognize the woman or know anything about her whereabouts, please call-"

He cut off the recording right there.

She turned around towards him.

"So what?" she asked, giving him another glare just for the sake of it.

"Do you know anything about this?" he questioned, the frown stuck on his face.

She shrugged. "Why do you care anyway?"

"You attempted to kill me," he said as if she had need just another reminded at how bad she had been at her job. "Why wouldn't I?"

His calmness was irritating her. Honestly, couldn't he act like any other person and get angry, try to get revenge or something like that? She knew how to deal with these people and it was easier than dealing with him, that much was for sure. Also, it coasted less time.

"Okay, fair point, but you still can't expect me to just tell you everything I know," she answered. "That's not how it works."

"The woman in the video is you," he stated after a moment, not even commenting on what she had said. So … maybe he had just a whole lot more patience and self-control than she did. Didn't make it better.

"That's what you say," she replied.

"It's obviously you," he replied with a small sigh. "And I would appreciate it if you stopped being so irrational about everything."

"But I'm not rational," she shot back, glaring.

"I noticed," he told her and she could swear there was a hint of sarcasm in his voice. "However, it appears, the person that wanted you to kill us wants to kill you now as well."

"Could be a coincidence," she said. "Also, why so sure it's the same person? Did they leave a note behind saying that or are you just assuming?"

"It is an assumption, yes," he answered. "But the chances of it being a coincidence are quite low."

"You have no idea how many people want me dead," she replied, arching her eyebrows further.

He sighed once more, pinching the bridge of his nose, annoyed with her … or with her replies, she wasn't too sure and she didn't particularly care.

And … fuck, fuck, something about this look he had reminded her of Ylvi – it made her skin tingle and brought back memories that she had nearly forgotten and it hurt … kinda. Like everything hurt when she thought of her, right between her fourth and fifth rib, a dagger right through them.

It didn't seem like she was going to have the option of drinking too much, killing too much, working too much, and risking too much to forget this time.

"I simply want you to cooperate," he said then, the words coming out a little strained like he wanted to say something else instead.

"It's not that simple," she retorted, tapping her fingers against her upper arm. "You might have figured that out." Her lips pulled into a humorless smile, barely holding up the corners of her mouth.

"I can't let you leave the room if you don't," he told her.

"Because you're so good at stopping me, yes?" she asked, snorting.

He only pressed his lips tighter together, apparently not liking being remembered on that – which she wasn't blaming him for, sure, she didn't like being remembered on how the last time had turned out either, but … it was something she was keeping in mind to use as an argument.

"But, let's say, I'm curious," she went on, running a hand through her hair. "Since, why would you want to work with me anyway?"

His face stiffened and she wasn't too sure he was actually going to answer, because it looked like something he didn't want to admit, because … well, she couldn't think of many scenarios in which a secret service would be so desperate to get her, a hitman, to work with them, and all of them included them being very badly in need of intel.

"You might possess information that could help us," he said, making it sound like a possibility, not a fact.

"Might?" she asked, arching her eyebrows. "Don't you mean probably?" Her lips parted to another smile that was a whole lot more predatory and self-satisfied this time.

"You could also be pretending to know something to gain an advantage," he said.

"Honestly, that's the most realistic assessment anyone's given about me," she muttered with a shrug. "Yeah, so, you're not entirely wrong about that, but I'd love to remind you that I don't need an advantage."

"So you don't know anything?" he questioned and it was … not what she had expected.

"Depends," she said. "I know, for example, more than thirty ways to kill someone with my bare hands and I'm very much interested in showing you."

Anger wasn't going to help her, she knew – she needed … she needed a phone and her weapons and then she needed to get the fuck out of here after she had talked to Jack, but unless she could someone convince this guy, she couldn't. Which sucked. Because she wasn't good at convincing.

"You've probably thought of a deal, right?"

His frown grew even deeper and she was fully expecting another shitty comment, but there weren't any and it was surprising how many of his replies he could swallow without seeming to run out of patience.

"It would be a temporary cooperation where we exchange information," he stated. "I would personally make sure you wouldn't harm anyone."

"Sure you don't want anyone more competent on that job?" she asked with arched eyebrows.

"You seem to drastically overestimate your skills," he commented.

"You know there were, like, ten times I could just have killed you if I wanted to, right?" she asked in return. "So, sure you're not underestimating me? But, then again, even if you didn't, you'd have to suggest this stupid idea, eh? Because you need information. And it pretty much looks like you don't have any. And you hope I have some."

He didn't reply right away, this time taking a little longer. "You are smarter than you seem to be."

"It's amazing how you make that sound like an insult."

"It was a statement," he corrected her. "It is your business what you make out of it."

She snorted. There was no use getting upset about it because men usually underestimated her. It was the same as always. Kinda. Mostly.

"Guess I have no choice," she muttered then, though she'd rather bite off her tongue.

His frown deepened. "You're agreeing?" he asked like he couldn't believe it. Neither could she, to be honest, but she had to do something.

"Do you want me to write up a contract?" she snapped. It was a bad idea, considering cooperation was something she shouldn't do without orders from her boss, but the good thing was, there was no moral code binding her to keep her word if Jack said anything different, so …

He nodded, still not looking like he was believing her, before taking a few steps closer and offering her his hand … which was a stupid thing to do if he was still suspecting her of trying to kill him – then again, he might be still underestimating her.

Digging her teeth into her tongue, she looked at his extended hand, wanting to take a step back to get some distance between them. "Is a handshake really necessary?" she asked then, glancing up at him.

"No," he replied, irritated, as he withdrew his hand.

"My name is Merlin," he went on and she was so glad he wasn't asking. "But you already knew that."

"Yeah," she muttered. "I'm Darja."

"Are you Russian?"

It … wasn't the reaction she had been expecting and there was no anger in his voice or disgust and she wasn't too sure he was even capable of feelings like that.

" _Da_ ," she replied, resisting the urge to glare at him because … well, she didn't like being Russian. Because Russia was a shitty excuse of a country. "Does it make any difference?"

"No," he said. "I was just wondering."

She wasn't exactly buying that, but … whatever. Not her problem. She was used to lies, after all, she was wearing them like a second skin.

"I've got a question," she said. "Am I getting my clothes back?" He better wasn't going to give a bullshit answer because if he did, she was going to reconsider and instead just try choking him.

"Of course," he answered with a brief nod like it was the most natural thing in the world. "It'll take a moment." He turned around and left.

It was … it wasn't that bad and there was this small hint of relief she was trying to ignore, because it shouldn't be there, yet she didn't get around feeling it.

Sighing, she shook her head, walking back to the bed and sitting down on the edge, before popping the joints in her back.

This was a giant piece of shit, this situation, and there was nothing she could really do about it and she hated it.

But, well, it was her fault to begin with, because she had failed and-

She shouldn't be thinking about that now, not in detail at least, because there were a lot of other times where she would and then she'd see her life crumble right in her hands, because she had failed, because she _was_ a failure and-

Yeah. Just like that.

She swallowed. The bitter taste stayed.

Waiting had never sat too well with her – neither had silence, so both things together were just … bad. Really, really bad.

And it seemed to take forever until the door opened again.

Merlin entered, carrying her nicely folded clothes and she couldn't remember the last time she had put so much effort into it.

She took them, nodding, her mouth too dry to talk and thank him.

"Are you going to give me back my weapons as well?" she asked. "And, along the way, all my other personal belongings?"

"Later, perhaps," he replied and she snorted, before putting her clothes down next to her.

When she looked up again, he was still there.

"Morphine does have several dangerous side effects," he said with this blank face.

"That's my problem," she answered, leaning back and supporting her weight with a hand. "Not yours."

"It would be my problem if you overdosed," he replied.

"Not happening," she said. "I know what I'm doing." Even if she didn't, she'd gladly take the risk, because overdosing was better than the things that would happen without morphine, better than the screaming and crying and the cut up arms and scratched open leg and the fears and memories.

His gaze briefly drifted towards her right leg.

She was suddenly too aware of it – it was as ugly as a burn scar could get, padded, red, uneven, running from her foot all the way up to her waist, nearly covering the width of her leg, the stitching still visible. It could have been worse, the surgeons had said, but she'd pay a lot of money to have all of it removed anyway.

"I'll be leaving then," he told her. "Hurry up."

She kept glaring at his back until the door closed behind him.

* * *

 _Derr'mo –_ translates to "shit"

 _Da –_ translates to "yes"


	3. Chapter 3: Concerns

Thinking one was going to die the next second was the stuff her nightmares were made out of lately, but what came after that was much worse.

The fear and the panic, the realization that it had been pure luck that had saved them, the memory of how powerless she had been, how powerless they all had been, how helpless – it was keeping her awake, manifesting in vague forms and shapes whenever she tried to sleep, putting her in a hyper-vigilant state with the expectation of danger at every turn. It wore her down.

Roxy closed her eyes and took off her glasses, before quietly setting them on the table.

"You all right?" Eggsy asked.

She looked up, hesitating for a moment, nodding slowly.

His eyebrows were sceptically drawn together and his gaze lingered on her for a moment longer. Then a brief smile crossed his features.

She returned it.

He focused his attention on the file in front of him again.

Biting her tongue, she lowered her gaze as well, attempting to concentrate, but by the time she had gotten to the second letter, she had forgotten the first one.

Her thoughts swirled too much.

And there was worry too, so much of it, it was making her sick.

Merlin had left them to paperwork, insisting he would be fine talking alone to the woman who had nearly killed him.

There were so many ways this could go wrong and Roxy didn't understand what he was even trying to accomplish – perhaps he didn't want to put them in danger again, perhaps he was truly so sure that nothing could happen, perhaps they wouldn't be as much of a help as they wanted to be, considering the shape they were in, but … still. She would certainly be calmer being there instead of sitting here.

Or at least he could have let them wait at the other side of the door – if he needed help, she … couldn't tell if they made it in time from here.

Slowly, she shook her head.

Merlin would notify them when he needed them, wouldn't he? But what if he couldn't-

The idea made a chill run down her spine.

Her mind was still racing, always coming up with more and more scenarios, putting things into words she would rather not have spelled out.

Gradually, she took a deep breath, trying to focus on that alone, trying to focus on keeping the air in her lungs for a couple of seconds before releasing it, trying to focus on the beating of her heart.

It wasn't helping.

She looked at the file in front of her again, this time determined to at least get past the title, but the stinging in her chest was too much and the lump in her throat threatened to suffocate her.

The door opened.

She turned around, her heart in her throat.

Merlin. Unharmed.

Relief flooded her.

He briefly stopped, glancing at them.

"How'd it go?" Eggsy asked, casually leaning back in his chair, a small smile tugging the corners of his mouth upwards by an inch, unstable enough to crumble any second.

"Quite well," Merlin replied as he closed the door behind him, then stepping into the room, moving with the same, unshakable composure as always. "She didn't try to kill me."

That was good, wasn't it? After all, all she had been dreading had included the absolute opposite.

Eggsy nodded, relaxing, and she wished she could do the same.

Merlin had sat down in his chair at the end of the table by now, putting down the clipboard.

She … wanted to ask, for selfish reasons, because she thought, if she knew more, it would calm her somehow, yet, she didn't want to bother Merlin with anything.

"Could you … find out anything about her?" She bit the inside of her cheek, immediately regretting to have spoken at all.

He only nodded though and she let go of another breath held too long, not sure why she was so cautious about it, but the tension was making her more … nervous than she wanted to admit.

"She said her name was Darja" he answered, appearing rather tired at recalling the conversation. "And that she was a hitman." He hesitated for a moment before continuing, which he usually never did.

"She agreed to cooperate," he went on.

"But that's a good thing, ain't it?" Eggsy asked, his eyebrows drawn together in confusion as he sat up.

"Theoretically," Merlin replied with a reluctant nod. "However, I don't think she truly intends on cooperating."

It … was something she hadn't wanted to hear.

She couldn't tell what exactly it was that made her skin crawl, that made her want to forget about it, that made her so sick about it – it shouldn't come as a surprise that a _hitman_ wasn't intending on keeping their word, yet … she had hoped for a better result, for security in the matter.

The door creaked, opening only a couple of inches at first, then fully.

A woman stopped in it – on a first, superficial glance she'd pass as ordinary. Averagely tall, wearing a dark pullover and jeans, a leather jacket in her hands.

She was everything but ordinary though. Roxy was sure, if she had ever seen her before, she would remember within a heartbeat.

Everything about her was screaming danger to her and she didn't think it was only because of the memories she had, no – there was something in her eyes, something in the way she was standing, relaxed but ready to strike, as capable of killing a person with nothing but her hands than she was with weapons.

Her facial features stuck out too – angular jawline, straight nose, prominent cheekbones, narrow eyes –, framed by soft waves reaching past her collar bones, naturally dark although the lower third had been dyed in an ashen colour that made her tanned skin look pale on contrast.

"You all might want to avoid windows for a while," the hitman said. Her voice was low, even, with an abraded accent to it. "Or anything else than the relative safety of an atomic shelter."

She- she was being sarcastic, wasn't she? She had to be.

"For which reason?" Merlin questioned, folding his hands on the table.

"Figured you'd prefer to live," she answered. "And since my boss is the kind of person who shoots first, asks questions later, and then kills you, your chances of surviving are about non-existent, especially since the situation's not that clear." Her lips parted to a life- and humourless smile that had something predatory, something that made her think this woman would sink a dagger in their backs at the first opportunity she got.

Roxy exchanged a short glance with Eggsy.

She knew what Merlin had meant. Darja seemed so ready to kill them, nearly looking forward to it – there was no way she would keep her word.

"He tried killing you," Merlin said then, his frown deepening.

The hitman rolled her eyes at him. "Boss and client aren't the same thing, yes?" she asked with another glare, shifting her weight to one leg and crossing her arms.

There was more to it than she was telling, clearly, and Roxy couldn't help feeling like it was some kind of sore point, something … that this woman didn't want to be brought up.

"The thing is," Darja went on, leaning with a shoulder against the door frame. "If I fail to kill you within a certain time frame, my boss will." Her voice had gotten darker and there was something calculating in her gaze now.

It made the hairs on her neck stand up.

"Hypothetically speaking," Merlin said slowly, simply considering the possibility that she meant part of it after all. "Is there any way of preventing that-"

"Well-"

"That doesn't end with you murdering us?"

"I'd love to say no," she answered with a sigh, a whole lot more honest than Roxy would have expected – it didn't match what she had said earlier, not the exaggeration and the lies … if they were lies. They had to be, hadn't they?

Darja ran a hand through her hair and … she looked older, by a couple of years, but as soon as she blinked, it was gone, leaving her wondering whether she had just imagined it.

"If you gave me my phone back," she said then, with another glare but they were losing their intensity. "I could call him. And ask him not to do that."

"And that would work?" Merlin questioned.

"Why wouldn't it?" she asked in return. "He's reasonable. Kinda."

It wasn't reassuring to hear, not exactly at least, and … she didn't know. None of this really made sense to her. There was no way of telling what was true and what wasn't.

The frown on Merlin's face kept growing deeper. Darja arched her eyebrows further, an unspoken question hanging between them.

After another moment, he reached inside his suit, withdrawing a phone before sliding it over the long table.

"Don't try anything," he warned the woman.

"You wouldn't notice if I did," she replied, before taking a few steps forward to pick up the device, proceeding to turn it on.

Roxy felt the need to disagree, to argue, but even if she had managed to get out a word, she wouldn't have found any arguments. There could be a code word, a special way of phrasing things, a single sentence – all of these things wouldn't seem out of the ordinary, after all, they were dealing with a professional here.

Darja typed a number, then holding the phone to her ear.

"I know which time it is," she said quietly after a moment of silence, closing her eyes and exhaling slowly. "I know. I need to-" She cut herself off.

"Alright," she went on. "I hear you, alright, but, like, can you wait with all that bloodshed and torturing until I explained?"

She paused, tilting her head a little and there was so much tension in her jaw she thought it might snap. " _Ya ne znayu, ya poprobuyu-_ "

It took her a second to notice the switch in languages and another one to realize that she didn't know a lot of Russian. Or any.

" _Da, konechno_." The woman put the phone into a pocket of her jeans without taking another glance at the display, turning around towards them again.

"Done," she said, her expression colder than before.

Her … boss had probably said something she didn't like, told her something she wasn't too fond of.

"How did you learn about us?" Merlin questioned after a short moment.

"I'm omniscient," she deadpanned before sighing. "The client sent a mail with all the information I needed to gave. You know how mails work, old man?" There was a twitching in her lips as if it was supposed to be a joke.

Merlin simply took a deep breath, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Meaning, you didn't find out anything by yourself?"

"I don't get paid for playing detective," Darja replied. "So, yes."

"Do you still have the files?"

"Theoretically," she answered. "I would have to get my laptop. From the hotel."

"You don't mean the one that has been involved in an explosion," Merlin concluded and she rolled her eyes at him in annoyance.

"Obviously," she replied in a tone of voice like he had just personally insulted her. "So, if you-"

"No."

"You don't even know what I was going to say," she replied, snorting.

"I assumed you were going to ask whether I'll let you go alone?" he questioned.

"Well, alright, that wasn't that hard to guess," she answered, tapping her fingers against her upper arms.

Slowly, Merlin rose to his feet.

"I don't like where this is going," the hitman muttered, studying him for a moment.

"Neither do I," Merlin replied, her eyebrows wandering up further in response. "But I will come along regardless."

Roxy's stomach twisted.

"Please don't," Darja muttered.

Merlin still crossed the distance of the room, motioning the woman to follow him. She did, but not after another glare.

Roxy let out a breath she had kept for too long when the door closed behind them. She wanted to race after them and convince Merlin not to do this, to think of something else instead, but her thoughts were a mess and her legs were shaking too much to get up.

* * *

 _Ya ne znayu, ya poprobuyu-_ \- translates to "I don't know, I'm trying-"

 _Da, konechno._ \- translates to "Yes, of course."


	4. Chapter 4: Questionable

He had always had a thing for reading people, quickly finding a way to get behind even the most complex masks they put on. After all, no one could control every inch of their body and so something ended up slipping – the shifting of their eyes, the small change in their tone, the subtle tension in their body, the brief flicker of the emotions they were trying to contain.

Darja was no different – she buried every hint of what she truly thought and felt beneath arrogance, mock, and occasional anger, and she was doing a good job at that, surely, however, with a little more time, he was certain he would figure her out as well. He had to.

For now, he simply had … a couple of interactions with her to start with, all of which didn't quite fit together, no matter how he was thinking about it. She was oddly straight-forward for a hitman, strangely honest despite having every reason to lie, understandably defensive and upset. As for her threat of killing him … while she was dangerous enough to be taken seriously on that, Merlin didn't think she would actually attempt it as lightly as she was suggesting.

Currently, though, his focus was needed elsewhere.

She hadn't said a word since they had left the dining room. He suspected, she was glaring dagger at his back instead. It would come as no surprise, considering how offended she had looked, yet he could only speculate about the reason, which made her unpredictable. Merlin didn't exactly like unpredictable people.

He exited the mansion.

Cold air greeted him, heavy with the smell of approaching rain. The trees had lost their leaves about two months ago, now standing bare and dark against the sky.

He went down the stairs, one hand resting on the cool stone. A car was already waiting, the key left in the ignition and the engine turned off.

Stopping next to the driver's side, he glanced at Darja, who had arched her eyebrows.

"Is there a reason you use cars that look like cabs?" she asked, nearly sounding casual.

"Yes," he answered after a moment, not sure where she was going with that question. "Cabs are such a regular appearance, especially nowadays, that no one pays much attention to them."

"Well, I guess," she replied with a shrug.

Silence settled in, briefly, tensely. Then she sighed, running a hand through her hair.

"Will the car explode or something if I open the door?"

"No," he answered slowly. "Has something like that happened to you before?"

"No and I'd like to keep avoiding it," she answered, making him wonder why she was thinking of it then in the first place.

With a shake of his head, dismissing the thought, he opened the door and got inside the vehicle.

She followed his example.

"You know," she said casually when fastening her seat. "I hadn't thought you out of all people would get in a car with me." There was a provoking tone in her voice.

"I think you're exaggerating," he told her, glancing at her, finding her studying him.

"I think you're downplaying it," she replied with an arch of her eyebrows, tilting her head. "I told you I could kill you with my bare hands."

"But you haven't," he argued with a frown. "If you truly wanted to, you could have tried about a dozen times already."

"I could just be waiting for the perfect opportunity," she suggested.

He … wasn't too sure what she was trying to achieve, after all, threats wouldn't get her anywhere – she should have noticed that much. And … he didn't understand why she wanted him to be wary of her so badly either since there were more disadvantages in that than anything else.

"I get the impression, you want me to distrust you," he said then, looking for a clue in her face, but there was no twitching of her lips. She barely even blinked.

"That's the natural thing to do," she answered, a dark look in her eyes but she wasn't quite glaring at him. There was tension in her jaw. "It's still up in the air whether I'll end up killing you."

She made it sound like she was waiting for orders, and it would make sense, considering this call with her boss had certainly been about more than just telling him to postpone whatever he would have done.

Yet, there was more to it, an implication, something hidden between the lines, something he hadn't expected to find.

Merlin tore away his gaze with a sigh and fixed it on the dirt road instead, leaving the matter for another time. He started the engine.

She rolled her eyes and turned around to look out of the window.

The silence lasted until they reached London.

Then Darja sat up, her eyebrows drawn together in what he assumed was suspicion, glancing into the rear-view mirror.

"Pretty sure we're being followed," she said. "Do you see that silver car that kinda looks like a pickup truck?"

Merlin glanced at her – her expression was serious – before he returned his attention to the street, then checking for the vehicle she had managed.

He found it.

His heartbeat sped up. He didn't know for how long it had been there.

"Do you mean the Nissan?" he questioned.

"I'm not good with car brands," she replied.

If she was right, which wasn't that impossible, he had made a mistake. A grave one, on top of that, after all, he was Merlin for a reason and he didn't know how something like that could have slipped him so easily – perhaps it was because he was more used to coordinating everything from a distance, but that was a poor excuse.

He took the next turn. The pickup was still there, always keeping one or two cars between them – it wasn't exactly subtle, though neither it wasn't a coincidence.

"You look like you're not believing me," Darja said after another couple of seconds, having shifted in her seat so that she could watch him better.

"On the contrary," he replied, making her arch her eyebrows at him in a way that made clear how little she was buying that. "However, I'm still weighing possibilities."

"There it is," she muttered, sounding a bit too relieved, like it would have shocked her if he hadn't said that. "You know I have a personal interest in staying alive?"

"I imagined," he answered simply, attempting to properly split his attention between the traffic, her, and that Nissan.

"So, since I have bulletproofed skin nor my weapons, it would really suck to run into someone who has," she said.

"No one has bulletproofed skin," he answered.

"You know what I mean," she replied and rolled her eyes at him, dismissing it with a wave of her hand.

"Why do you think there is going to be a fight?" he asked. "And that guns will be involved?"

"I've learnt to expect the worst," she said dryly, looking at him. "Also, I'm mostly working in America and you can actually bet money that whatever you do, two out of three people will have weapons, especially if you're doing illegal stuff." There was no anger, no provoking – just annoyance and impatience. Barely though.

"I see," he replied with a nod.

She arched an eyebrow, apparently waiting for something.

"I was trying to subtly tell you that a suggestion on how to deal with this situation or an offer of at least a gun would be nice," she said now, her voice sharper and lower than before.

"I noticed," he told her, a frown crossing his face. "But you surely are aware that I can't just give you a weapon like that."

"Yeah, but you don't act like you're terribly afraid either," she commented flatly.

"It's because you're not as frightening as you make yourself out to be," he replied.

She glared at him.

"We'll see about that," she said. It was a promise and he wouldn't be that surprised if she genuinely tried strangling him any time soon for the sake of proving him wrong.

He wasn't afraid of it, because violence was nothing he was afraid of. He had seen enough of it to grow dull towards it. Scars and bruises would heal. And the chance that she would really kill him was rather low.

Her shoulders were so tense he thought they'd snap and she was working her jaw. Perhaps he had personally offended her again without any intention of doing so, after all, she seemed to take her reputation and how people perceived her very seriously.

"Look," she said after a few minutes, still obviously upset. "I don't like this situation any more than you do and I don't like you and I don't think you've got any different opinions about that. And I don't care. All I care about is staying alive. And that's hard enough to do normally."

There was more to it than what she was telling him.

"I understand that," he replied after a moment of considering. "But I am in a position where I am responsible for other people's lives." He shook his head. "One moment, you're determined to get me to distrust you, the next you want me to give you a gun."

"Yeah, well, it's complicated," she snapped, glaring, and there was a tremble in her fingers that she was drumming against her upper arms.

Merlin frowned, studying her for a second. It was … a lot of things but certainly not complicated, but he didn't think it would help the situation if he started arguing about that and telling her, how he thought there was a very personal reason she wanted to have a gun.

He shouldn't give her anything. She was dangerous, a risk, especially if she was angry, but … in all honesty, there was no pro argument. Everything was speaking against it.

Yet …

His heart was pounding harder in his chest at the thought alone and there was a lump in his throat.

Merlin couldn't say why he was considering it – he shouldn't.

"I'm not going to shoot you," she said then, with an arched eyebrow, but the amusement he would have expected wasn't there.

"Even if you promise that, I'm not sure if your word means anything," he replied.

"True," she said with a shrug. "But-" She sighed, running a hand through her hair and closing her eyes. "It's just … it would make things easier."

"Do you plan on killing someone?" he asked, his voice stern when he glanced at her.

"Not necessarily," she answered, her eyebrow wandering up further. "Though that would be easier too, but that's not really what I mean."

"So what do you mean?"

"The fickle safety of not feeling totally helpless in a possibly dangerous situation?" she suggested, the choice of words making it sound general, like it wasn't applying to her – but it was, clearly, and her honesty was catching him off guard.

She didn't have to tell him, she didn't have to tell him any of the things she was telling him and he didn't understand why she was doing it – she could lie just as easily and he probably would never know.

However, despite that, he shouldn't give in – the safety of his agents was more important than her comfort and yet …

Slowly, he took a deep breath, simply focusing on the traffic for a moment, but the idea stayed, weirdly so.

"Open the glove compartment," he told her then, feeling like he was going to regret that decision within the next second.

"The what?" she asked, sitting up. "I heard what you said, but what does it _mean_?" She was speaking a bit too fast now, the endings slurring. "What's it in Russian?" She bit her lip like she would have rather not asked.

He … should have thought of that.

Merlin considered for a moment, trying to remember – it had been a while since he had last used Russian, and he wasn't too sure he even knew that word. At first, the German equivalent came to mind, then the French one, after that the Spanish one.

"I think it's _bardachok_ ," he said, glancing at her.

Her eyebrows were still drawn together, conveying her suspicion just fine, as she studied him for another moment, before she opened the compartment.

"That's … unexpected," she muttered, not exactly talking to him, and perhaps that was why her tone was smoother, calmer – if he wasn't imagining it, that was.

She reached inside and slowly took her weapons out – her gun which she put in the back of her pants, two sheathed daggers that apparently were coated in poison and she hid them in the sleeves of her pullover, another dagger and a knife that both went into her jacket.

They approached a red traffic light and he slowed down the car, bringing it to a halt, before he glanced into the rear-view mirror again. The Nissan was still there.

"Do you like Asian food?" she asked then, tilting her head.

"Does it matter?" he questioned in return, not quite following the sudden change of topic.

"No," she said. "But there's an Asian diner a few – okay, twenty – minutes from the hotel. And there's an alley that's perfect for luring someone in and getting them to talk. Or shoot them."

"You're not shooting anyone," he said, glancing at her.

"I'll try," she said casually. "So, what do you think?"

"It's not the best plan I've heard," he said, pausing before continuing but she cut him off.

"That's because it's not a plan," she said. "I don't plan."

"That's not reassuring," he answered with a frown. "I usually do."

"Yeah, I figured that," she replied with a small snort. "Do you've got a better idea that's not running around the city until the people following us are tired of it and try something or following them in return?"

"What's so bad about both of that?" he questioned.

"It's waiting for something to happen and that's wasted time," she said but he got the impression that she didn't like waiting in general, because things were out of her control then and she seemed to like having at least the illusion of being in control.

Merlin considered for a moment – a very brief moment, since their destination was close enough now to be seen and it would be difficult to come up with something until he parked the car, especially since he had so little information.

On top of that, the approach Darja had suggested sounded like something that would work in American action films, not in reality, but, he supposed, it was better than nothing, if he didn't want to argue with her about other approaches, which he didn't.

"All right," he said with a small sigh, attempting not to think too much about it.

"Are you sick or something?" she asked, a hint of sarcasm in her voice now. "Because I didn't think you'd actually agree with me about that. Or anything, really."

"Is it really that hard to believe?" he questioned, scanning the side of the road for parking spaces.

"Do you want me to lie to make you feel better?" she asked after a moment, her eyebrows arched high, and he sighed, shaking his head.

She didn't reply, as he parked the car and went on to turn off the engine, the silence suddenly unusual.

It was a rather calm area, without much traffic – it all had something serene, in a way. The red brick was familiar, the old architecture of mainly five-storey buildings comforting, and even the trees had something peaceful.

"Well, let's go," she muttered, slipping on her jacket, before opening the door and getting out, closing it behind her again.

He waited for a couple of seconds before he got out as well, locking the car.

The Nissan was nowhere to be seen.

Merlin followed her, crossing the street as well, before casting the hotel she had entered a short glance.

During a warmer season, it could look nice – there were two small trees in black pots in the front of the entrance, barren branches extending towards grey skies, and several window boxes now only containing earth.

He stepped inside.

The tiles on the floor were shining black and he spotted a lot of dark wood, which made the room seem … small, too small, despite the use of white to work against it.

Darja was already at the other end of the room, casually leaning on the reception next to several flights of stairs winding up.

Merlin stopped at a tactful distance.

The woman behind the desk slowly seized the typing, looking up. She had dark hair, put up in a bun, and was wearing formal clothes.

"Hello," she said with a smile, attention fully focused on Darja. It seemed like they knew each other. "How may I help you?"

"I want to check out," Darja replied, her accent heavier and her voice softer, but it didn't appear forced – meaning, she had impressive acting skills.

"I can arrange that," the woman answered. "Your name was … Oksana Morozova?" She struggled with the pronunciation, trying but not exactly managing to get it out just right.

"Right," Darja confirmed with a patient smile. "I was staying in room three-two-five."

The clerk nodded, typing something into the computer, before a frown appeared on her face. "Are you sure?"

"I am, thanks," Darja answered, running a hand through her hair. It had something elegant now, not something agitated, like she was suddenly someone who couldn't afford to be caught off guard – like a model or an actress.

"All right," she muttered, swallowing, typing again.

"Also, I was wondering," the hitman went on, waiting until the clerk's attention was fully on her again. "Could you do me a little favor?"

"I could try," she offered, the frown smoothing a little, although there was still some concern.

"Could you keep this a secret?" Darja asked, biting her lip, sounding like she was genuinely embarrassed to ask at all. "I know, it's an unusual request and all, but it's kinda important to me? I wanted to enjoy my stay in London, but I have, unfortunately, had a run-in with a few not so understanding guys and now they're bugging me and really won't leave me alone, so I guess one of them will show up here sooner or later and … well."

The other woman nodded nearly immediately. "Of course," she said, her expression soft and understanding.

"Sorry," she muttered, scratching the back of her head, uneasy in her skin. "But … thanks. Really."

The clerk simply nodded again, brushing off the topic with a wink of her hand. It was only now that she seemed to notice him, slowly turning around to look at him, hesitating for a moment.

"Oh, don't worry," Darja said before Merlin had even thought of something. "He's with me." She turned around to look at him. The smile on her lips wasn't meant for him – small, light-hearted, perhaps even flirting, growing brighter when she glanced at the woman again.

"You know," she went on in a confiding tone of voice, quiet enough that he barely heard. "He's a bodyguard. After all, I'm a model, not a material artist." She gave a silent laugh, like the idea was the most absurd ever and if Merlin hadn't known better, he would just have believed her.

He politely nodded, when the other woman looked at him with a frown, but a little bit of suspicion remained.

Darja waved goodbye, before climbing up the stairs right next to her that creaked beneath her steps.

He followed her, although staying a little behind her.

She stopped once they reached the third floor, never slowing down in between, entering the hallway to her right and leading the way to the room she must have occupied. Then she dug through her pockets for a card she opened the door with.

She entered the room.

It was flooded with light coming through tall windows, contrary to the rest of what he had seen of the hotel until now.

There was a large bed, a few chairs, and a table, all in light and bright colours – white and beige, some blue and dark yellow, and a few brown hues.

Yet, it didn't have anything personal except from an empty bottle on the table that probably had contained alcohol, along with a laptop, and two bags on the floor.

Darja was already busy storing the device into one of them.

Then she walked towards the windows, quickly glancing outside.

"We're definitely being followed," she announced, acting like she always had around him.

Frowning, he crossed the room when she didn't elaborate, looking outside as well.

There was a silver car parked at the side of the road that could be a Nissan. A man walked from it towards the hotel.

"Possibly," he replied, watching her out of the corners of his eyes.

"Well, if not, I'm at least getting something to eat out of this," she answered with a roll of her eyes.

"I suppose," he said, not suddenly much more fond of the plan than he had been a couple of minutes ago, but he had decided to follow along with it when he hadn't argued with it sooner.

"I suppose you want to go alone?" he asked.

"That's the whole point of it," she retorted with a small snort but the edge was missing from her voice.

Slowly, Merlin nodded, considering he had left himself with no other choice than that.

She nodded in return, shouldering her bags.

* * *

 _bardachok_ – translates to "glove compartment"


	5. Chapter 5: Assault

The doubts hit her the second she stepped out of the room.

Nothing new there, she always doubted herself. This time though … well, it wasn't just about that.

Relying on other people was always a bit _risky_ when you couldn't trust anyone, and Merlin was no exception to that – if she did trust someone, she could end up very dead very fast. Which would, honestly, be one of the better outcomes.

No use considering that now. She wasn't going to go back in and admit how much of a dumb idea it actually was.

Maybe that was a big flaw of hers, and maybe she should do something about it before it got her killed, but … there were other, bigger flaws and she had have had that conversation before and it had been awful and it would-

Darja took a deep breath, keeping it in her lungs until she couldn't anymore, only then releasing it.

Work was work. She had to focus. One mistake was one too many.

She shouldered her laptop bag and tightened her grip around the other one, setting into motion.

The weight of her weapons pressing into her skin – the cold of her gun, the leather of her knives – had something reassuring, something grounding, like alcohol had something sobering for a couple of moments until you blacked out.

The hallway still seemed small, too small, and she still hated the dark wood that reminded her of things she didn't want to be reminded of.

Breathing was getting harder and she smelt smoke, genuine smoke, not cigarettes, but she simply shook her head, forcing the memory back into the dark corner of her mind it had crawled out of.

She climbed down the stairs, paying attention to their creaking beneath her weight, the muffled echo of her steps, the rushing of her blood in her veins.

No other noises.

Good. She guessed. It probably wasn't, because silence like that never was a good thing, but she would find out soon enough then anyway, wouldn't she?

She wanted to hurry but she couldn't, not if she didn't want to draw attention, yet time seemed to drag on forever and the stairs didn't seem to end and it was making her a whole lot more uneasy than she wanted it to.

There were only two flights left when she heard voices.

She stopped.

"Miss," a man said. Rough voice. "Think about it again. Are you sure you haven't seen the woman I'm looking for? It's important."

She didn't remember his voice. So she probably didn't know him.

Which was, on the one side, positive. On the other, there was a stranger looking for her which was … a giant pile of shit. _If_ that guy was looking for her, but, honestly, what were the chances that he wasn't?

"I'm sorry, sir," the other person replied – Elaine. "But I really haven't seen her."

Silence.

"I've told you before," she said now, sighing. "I do not know this woman. And, if that's your only concern, sir, I have to ask you to leave."

"Are you certain?" the man asked, probably not for the first time, considering how pressing he sounded.

"I am," Elaine replied. "Now, please-"

"Fine," he retorted, snorting. Heavy steps. More silence.

Darja didn't like it. This guy seemed suspicious, and … who was he? And who had send him? Jack hadn't, she knew that much, but that didn't exactly narrow the possibilities.

And he didn't exactly seem like a _professional_ criminal either, let alone a hitman, because those avoided to be remembered.

She waited a few more moments, until she could be absolutely sure the man had left, before she took the last few stairs down.

Elaine's gaze caught hers when she entered the lobby.

Darja managed a smile, probably a shy one, running her hand through her hair.

"Thanks," she said, using a heavier accent, stepping a little closer.

"No problem," Elaine told her with a smile of her own. "I'm happy to help. I hope, he hasn't bothered you too much?"

"No," she replied, shaking her head, then pushing a few strings of her hair behind her ear. "I appreciate your concern though."

The clerk nodded, her gaze trailing towards the stairs, like she was expecting someone else. Her smile faltered. "Where's your bodyguard?"

Right. Shit. Well-

"Well," Darja answered with an awkward shrug, scratching the back of her head. "You know, I don't want to stir up any false rumors – the press is horrible with these things – so … he went on ahead. Don't worry, I'll meet up with him soon." She gave an assuring smile. "It's going to be fine."

Nothing was going to be though, not really, not until Jack said she could go back home and they would take care of this together, without any weird secret services.

Hopefully, he'd do that soon.

"I see," Elaine said quietly, the worry still visible on her face though. "Stay safe."

"I will," Darja answered with a tired smile. "Anyway, do you have a piece of paper and something to write with for me?"

Nodding, the other woman reached for something out of her sight, beneath the table.

Gun. She should draw her own.

She ignored her instincts.

Elaine handed her a small sheet of paper and a pen, smiling at her.

Darja returned the gesture, slowly taking the pen, before she wrote down her phone number.

"In case you need something," she said, looking up. A favor for a favor, she guessed, in a way – it was the nice thing to do. Despite being a hitman. And despite having to be forgettable. And it was stupid, but she only realized now and … she didn't feel like she would actually get a call anyway.

"Thanks," the woman replied, surprised, her gaze lingering on the numbers on the paper instead of her.

"Here's the keycard," Darja went on, placing it on the desk. "See you."

"See you," she repeated.

She nodded, then turning around and crossing the room, before exiting the building.

A rush of cold greeted her and she closed her jacket, shoving her hands into her pockets.

The city didn't look any different. Darja didn't know if it was supposed to be calming or upsetting her, really.

Movement. To her left. Someone in the crowd, trying not to be seen, doing a horrible job at it.

 _Definitely_ not a professional.

When she started walking, gaze kept on the pavement, the person followed her.

At least something was working out.

* * *

Nearly half an hour later, she left the fast food restaurant with a box of noodles.

The warmth was nice, considering it was still fucking cold and she should have probably brought gloves or a scarf or something, but, then again, those weren't exactly the most convenient if you had to fight.

The smell made her stomach ache from hunger and cramp a little – god, she was about to screw the plan and just eat. Too bad the guy was still following her, since she wasn't going to risk anything, even if he seemed to be really bad at this. She had gotten a glimpse of his face within the first _minute_.

It was as close as a personal insult in her business could get.

There'd be enough time to be upset about that later though.

The alley was getting close, so she slouched her shoulders. Never had been her favorite part about the job, pretending to be weaker than she was.

Shaking her head, she suppressed a shudder and all those memories threatening to take over her mind.

She turned right, entering, acting as if she was totally unaware of the heavy steps following her and the panic building up in the back of her head.

To her left, bins bristling with trash. To her right, a building, high and tall, and making this alley feel too narrow. In her way, holes in the asphalt, filled with dirty water.

She made it halfway through, her back already hurting from the position, before this guy decided to act.

"Hey," he said with a voice so rough it made her throat hurt from just listening to it. "Listen up."

She turned around with the most confused expression she could put on.

"Are you … talking to me?" she asked, drawing her eyebrows together as she studied him.

He looked ordinary. Brown hair, pullover, pants, trainers.

"Yeah," he snarled in annoyance. "You."

She tightened her grip on the strap of her laptop bag, feeling the other one dig deeper into her shoulder. The dagger beneath her sleeve pressed against her skin.

She swallowed visibly.

He took a step forward,

She took one back.

He grinned in satisfaction at her 'fear'.

Asshole.

Darja wanted to reach for her gun and just shoot him, like she would have done back in America, but this wasn't America.

Her feelings didn't listen to reason though – anger seethed through her veins, boiling up in her stomach, rising in her throat, and she wasn't going to just let him go.

"Piss off, hitman," he said, loud and confident. "If you don't, you'll regret it." He clenched his fists and grinned, apparently pleased with this fake sense of being superior.

Pathetic. So really, really pathetic. She barely needed anything from her first year of training to take him out.

"Uhm, I don't now-" Her voice was quiet, trembling even a little, but only because she was about to laugh.

"You heard me," he said with a low growl. "Piss off or I'll make you regret it."

Yeah, _right_.

"Sorry," she said, drawing her eyebrows further together as she gave a nervous laugh. "You _really_ must be mistaking me. I mean, do I look like a hitman to you?"

"Don't fuck around," he replied, nearly yelling.

"Please don't shout at me," she said, flinching and raising her arms. "I don't have any idea what you're talking about. If you want money, I can give you money, but, please, leave me alone."

She glanced at him.

He had stopped mid-action, a fist raised, irritated, hesitating.

Slowly, she lowered her arms again, shifting her weight.

The man narrowed his eyes, taking a few steps closer until he was about two or three feet away from her.

That would do.

"Wait a moment," he said, studying her more closely.

She placed the noodles on the trash bin, out of his sight.

"But-"

She leaped forward, kneeing him in the stomach. Then she withdrew one of her sheathed knives, running it along his neck, just deep enough to inject the poison.

He crashed to the ground.

Darja placed a foot on his back, stopping him from getting up.

"So, now," she muttered, drawing in a deep breath, ignoring the straining of the straps, sheathing her dagger.

He groaned.

With a snort, she turned him around with the tip of her foot before pressing it down on his chest. "Who are you working for?"

Glaring.

Oh, for fuck's sake.

"Come on," she said.

"Bitch."

"Asshole," she retorted. Then she pulled out her gun, aiming it at his head. "Let's try again. Who's the idiot that hired an incompetent loser like you?"

"I'm not telling you," he spat.

"Then I'm shooting you," she told him with a shrug of her shoulders, clicking the safety off and putting a finger around the trigger.

It was working miracles.

"Wait!" His voice cracked. His eyes had gone wide.

"I am," she reminded him after a brief moment of silence.

"I … I don't know," he stuttered.

"You wanna try again?" she asked and arched her eyebrows. "Because, if you've got nothing to tell me, you're not of use to me."

"I really don't know!" he said, swallowing so hard he forgot to breathe. "I just got this weird email, but they offered to pay good-"

"The name," she demanded, pushing down harder with her foot. "What's their name?"

"There was none," he told her, becoming quiet all of a sudden.

She moved her gun closer, despite being relatively sure he wasn't lying – but torturing him a bit more was fun and she wasn't above it either, so …

He trembled, whining, squinting his eyes shut, waiting to be shot.

And for a moment she considered just doing it because he deserved it, although he was going to die within the next twenty-four hours anyway, but the satisfaction of shooting someone was something entirely different.

Unfortunately, this still wasn't America and there was Merlin and someone was bound to notice and she fucking hated it – she hated everything at the moment, really, so maybe that was that, or maybe she just hated-

She sighed, clicking the safety of her gun back on and taking a step back. "Fuck off."

His eyes snapped open. He scrambled to his feet.

"If you tell anyone about this," she said quietly, glaring. "I will find you and _you_ won't like that."

He barely nodded before turning around and stumbling as he left.

Hopefully, he wouldn't cause any more trouble than he already had.

She took a deep breath and shook her head, putting the gun into the back of her jeans again, picking up the noodles.

Then she left the alley as well.

Merlin was there waiting, with the car, and … she wasn't too sure how to feel about it.

For a second, she bit her lip, hesitating, thinking about turning around and leaving, before getting in on the passenger side.

The thud of the door had something eerily final.

"I didn't shoot him," she said with an arch of her eyebrows when she looked at him, noticing the frown on his face.

"You killed him anyway," he replied, seeming a bit tense. "And you used your gun in public."

"I wasn't really _using_ it," she argued. "But nothing happened, so what's your problem?"

"Something could have happened," he told her, quietly, seriously, like … she didn't know.

"You really think I'm doing this for the first time, don't you?" she retorted with a snort. "So, if somebody saw me, if there had been police, I would have come up with something."

"I'd prefer it if you stopped doing that," he said then after a moment, his gaze focused on her, and for the first time, it was making her uneasy, because he was actually looking at her and she feared he could see everything she didn't want him to.

"I'd prefer it if you didn't try ordering me around," she answered, her voice low and conveying anger though she didn't know where it was coming from.

"It's not an order," he said, blinking, his frown deepening as he studied her.

"It sounds like one," she snapped, trying to ignore the other possibility, the fact, that this might was … truly a cooperation between equals, that things weren't as bad as she wanted them to be, that it was something she hadn't learned to deal with.

It was all only temporary anyway. Really.

Merlin seemed to think or consider or weight or _whatever_ for a moment, before shaking his head, turning around and starting the car.

She withdrew the chopsticks from the pockets of her jacket.


	6. Chapter 6: the Kingsman files

cw & tw: (mild) language & angst

* * *

She had finished her noodles before they even left London.

On the bright side, her stomach wasn't hurting anymore. On the not so bright side, there was nothing to busy herself with.

There was the muffled noise of the engine and traffic outside, yes, but it was too quiet, nothing against the unreasonable, too loud voices in her head, the doubts, the fears, the ones painting a way too vivid picture of the worst case scenarios, the memories.

She dug through her jacket and pants, looking for some chewing gum although she was pretty sure she had run out of it the day prior to the hit.

Shit.

She needed _something_ , anything, really, that would serve as a distraction and … she still had her cigarettes, but, well, Merlin would mind … not that she particularly cared about that, it was just that she wasn't really trying to make him _hate_ her. If she could was another question entirely, since he seemed like the type of person to get angry very, very slowly.

With another sigh, she ran a hand through her hair, before pulling out her phone, attempting to ignore this stupid, tiny spark of hope.

There wasn't going to be a missed call all of a sudden.

Darja was right about that. The screen lit up. No new messages, no new emails, no missed calls.

The disappointment was still bitter in her throat.

For a second, her fingers hovered over the screen and she considered writing Elias. Or Nik. Or Ylvi. Or, fuck, she'd even write Jack, even though he never read texts or replied to them and disturbing him was always a bad idea, of course, but just sitting here for … a while wasn't that much better, honestly.

In the end, she locked her phone and leaned back into the seat, closing her eyes.

It was getting ridiculous – _she_ was getting ridiculous. That was the whole problem.

She couldn't go back in time and undo her mistake. The sooner she accepted that, the better. It had happened, though it shouldn't have, yeah, sure, and it fucking sucked, but there was no use in getting so worked up about it. No need for all the things swirling around in her head like some tornado.

Slowly, she blinked, opening her eyes again.

Fields greeted her instead of buildings, fields and fields and even more fields, now brown, plain earth that looked pale compared to the sky. And it didn't seem to end, simply going on for longer and longer and longer.

Darja had never liked it; she was more the kind of person who preferred cities with people and skyscrapers and screens and so many things to distract you. For her, there was something depressing about these wide stretches of nature and nothing, something that made her always feel so unimportant and small and she hated that.

After what seemed like forever, there was a building in the distance.

Several minutes later, the car finally came to a halt.

She got out the very same second, taking in a deep breath of the cold air stinging in her lungs and sending a shiver from her head to her toes. It came back out as a small, white cloud, quickly rising up.

There were steps. She turned around.

Merlin was already on his way towards the mansion, motioning her to follow him with this hard expression still stuck on his face.

Briefly, she hesitated. Orders were orders, no matter how much she disliked them, sure, but her sanity was another and … it wasn't going to end well. There was still this panic in the back of her head, rooted, and she didn't know if ignoring would work – it was already threatening to spill over.

She gritted her teeth, biting her tongue until all she tasted was blood, before following him, having to speed up her steps not to get lost.

The hallways still all looked the same to her. She didn't want to stick around long enough to see that change.

He slowed down in front of a big pair of doors that seemed at least the faintest bit familiar, which wasn't that surprising because, apparently, there was only one of these in the whole building.

Merlin opened them.

Yeah, she also remembered the room behind it – it was the one with the layout that didn't make sense to her, the one with the long table in the middle of it and … nothing else.

The two kids were still – or again – there, sitting in the same places as last time.

Darja stopped at the door, leaning against the frame with a shoulder and crossing her arms.

Every instinct was telling her to go, to turn around and run, and she didn't know why – not exactly at least, though, sure, there was this threat of a panic attack, but … there was also this trembling in the tips of her fingers, this sense of immediate danger, this rush of adrenaline.

Was she just missing something, maybe because she didn't want to think about it, or was she overreacting, was-

"Is something the matter?" Merlin asked, having gone ahead and sat down, his hands flat on the table, and he was looking at her and … he didn't look angry, not like he had been repeating that question.

"I'm contemplating my chances," she said flatly, lying. "And how far I would make it if I ran."

The truth was, she wouldn't make it far, because this was in the middle of fucking nowhere and because of orders and because she and cars didn't really get along that well.

"It seems you assess the situation realistically then," he replied. "Since you're not running."

"Oh, yes," she answered with an assuring nod and small hum, barely managing to keep her lips from twitching. "I'm already thinking about which way of killing you would be the best." Only then she gave in, smiling arrogantly, self-satisfied.

Merlin pressed his lips together, apparently not liking that answer too much.

The two kids didn't seem to either.

"I see," he answered, his tone cool. "Could you show us the files then?"

She arched her eyebrows. Usually, people were at least _a bit_ offended when she said stuff like that, but it seemed like he wasn't most people … which she should have probably guessed, because she had noticed it before, but … she didn't know. Whatever.

With a shrug, she pushed herself from the door frame, crossing the room.

Then she stopped next to his chair, still at some distance, but not enough.

Darja went on to open the zipper of her laptop bag, before taking out the device and placing it on the edge of the table.

Booting took forever – and although she was pretty sure it was simply her mind playing tricks on her, it didn't really help, because there was nothing she could do about it.

Finally, she got to enter her password, then dragging her mouse over the whole screen to double click on the files she had downloaded from the client's mail.

"There it is," she said, barely managing not to grit her teeth, when the document popped up.

"May I?" Merlin asked, his hand hovering a few inches above her laptop.

 _What_.

That was … unexpected. More than unexpected. Because … it was polite, in a way, she guessed, and she couldn't remember the last time she had met someone in her line of work who had been polite.

"Don't damage anything," she replied, her voice rougher than before.

"Duly noted," he answered.

Wait, that-

It sounded like he was being sarcastic, but she hadn't thought he even knew what that was, let alone how to use it, and … it was throwing her off, sure, and she didn't like being thrown off and yet it wasn't that bad – in face of everything else, that was.

The two kids leaned in to get a better look, while she took a few steps back, crossing her arms again.

Honestly, she'd rather not do any of this, because … she didn't like other people touching her things and there wasn't really much of a reason for it other than her generally not trusting people. And, of course, she was a hitman, but this was about her laptop, not her weapons, so … it was different. Still.

Her phone buzzed. Repeatedly.

Sighing, she pulled it out of her pocket, taking a quick glance at the display.

Her stomach dropped.

The number wasn't saved to her contacts but she knew it anyway.

Jack.

And there was this stupid hope and this bitter taste of disappointment and as much as she wanted to take the call, as little she wanted to at the same time because it meant facing reality and she'd rather not do that now when there were other people around, possibly watching, seeing-

She swiped her finger right before her mailbox kicked in, turning around, walking towards the window and holding the phone to her ear.

" _Dobriy den'_ ," she said, pushing the air out of her lungs like she was exhaling cigarette smoke. Unfortunately, there was nothing calming about the gesture alone.

"I'm having about as much of a good day as you do," her boss replied in Russian, sounding like he always did – dry and flat.

"What a surprise," she muttered beneath her breath, swallowing.

"Really," Jack answered and … she had no idea if he was being sarcastic or just really, really tired of it all. "You do owe me an explanation, I recall? I'd like to hear it now."

"It's not the best moment," she told him, digging her teeth into her bottom lip.

"Probably," he answered.

"Alright," she said then, running a hand through her hair, since there was no use arguing and she had to tell him at one point anyone, but … that didn't make it any better, only worse, since her heart was nervously fluttering now and her breaths were coming unregular and unsteady.

"So," she went on. "It started with this email I got. Someone offering a job. The pay seemed good."

"It usually does."

"Yeah," she said, already feeling a tremble of her voice. "The job itself seemed easy enough too – just killing and torturing a few people. Looked like it was about taking out a whole, secret organization or at least the important part of it, but, whatever, right? So I accepted, got half the money in advance."

She paused. "The client gave me a shit ton of information – a bit too much, if I'm honest, and I was suspicious about it, but I decided not too care to much. I went to London, hacked the security system of the first guy's apartment and waited. He didn't turn out to be difficult to handle either; neither were these two brats that showed up."

"But?"

" _But_ ," she repeated, swallowing, a lump suddenly sitting tightly in her throat and threatening to choke her. "Something went wrong. I don't know what or why or how. I just kinda know one of these brats hit my scar and the morphine wore off – it shouldn't have – and … well, you can imagine the rest."

"Unfortunately," he said, but he didn't sound angry. He never did though. "What happened then?"

"I woke up in a hospital," she answered. "Only that it wasn't one but part of the headquarters belonging to the organization I was supposed to take out. And then this guy I was trying to kill first comes in and shows me this news reports about the fake apartment I booked being blown up. So I had to agree to cooperate to get out and now … I'm kinda showing them the files I got to prove I'm not making this shit up."

She closed her eyes for a moment, hearing her blood rush in her ears, and it felt more like she was fighting than having a conversation.

"It would be great if you wouldn't skin me alive," she added.

"I wasn't going to," he told her before falling silent, briefly, not for longer than a second. "The situation seems complex. Too complex to make rash decisions."

"What do you mean, rash?" she asked, surprised she even managed to.

"To say whether I can get you out of there immediately or not," he replied.

"I could, you know, just do my thing and kill some people," she replied with a shrug of her shoulders, still sounding casual although her fingers were shaking.

"I don't doubt you," he answered. "I doubt that it's the wise thing to do."

"Jack," she said, her heart pounding so hard against her ribs she thought they were going to bruise, while she had to clench her free hand into a fist.

"I don't like it either," he said, but it wasn't making any of this any better. "But considering the chances that these two incidents – the client wanting to kill them and, apparently, you – are related, there would be an advantage in you staying just long enough to find the link."

"And if there isn't any link?" she asked, the words burning on her tongue like fire. "If they only wants me out of the way because I fucked up?"

"Where would they know?" her boss questioned.

"There was this guy," she said, forcing herself to speak slow and calm though the words threatened to rush off her tongue in a blur. "When I got my laptop. Amateur. He was apparently only hired to tell me to fuck off. Though he did look like he was ready to fight me."

"But that doesn't make sense," Jack replied, his tone sharper than before. Her heart stopped there for a moment, something sinking her stomach. "If that man was hired by your client, they would have no need to blow up your apartment. And they wouldn't hire an amateur … unless he'd want you to get away."

"That makes even less sense," she muttered, but she felt like screaming, like begging, like _pleading_ , because she didn't know if she could bear staying.

"That's my point," he replied. "I'm not going to make a decision with possibly grave consequences until I can be a hundred percent sure it's manageable."

"Yeah, but-" She cut herself off, swallowing, looking for words. There was only panic though and the urge to run.

"It's not just about some new scars," he said – but it didn't matter what he said, rather what he _didn't_ , because … she knew, she really knew, and it was knocking the air out of her lungs, it wasn't letting her breathe, it wasn't letting her _think_.

She wasn't used to people caring. She wasn't used to _him_ caring.

"I know," she said then, barely whispering, her voice about to tremble, eventually failing her when she wanted to continue.

"I'd prefer not to," he said after a moment of silence that was unusual enough.

And, fuck, yes, Jack was probably right about all of that, because he was always thinking ahead, thinking logically, thinking rationally, and yet her feelings were conflicted, so conflicted.

" _Alright_ ," she muttered, her heartbeat stuttering, feeling like it was one of the biggest mistakes of her life.

"Be careful," he said only. "I'll be getting the files you received from your mail, yes?"

" _Da_ ," she answered before he ended the call.

Shit. It was – it was all just really shitty, honestly, and she didn't know … she just didn't feel like she knew anything anymore. Like, at all.

She wanted … she still just wanted to go home, really, but it wasn't going to happen, not any time soon and-

She shook her head, running a hand through her hair, simply focusing on just breathing for a couple of seconds, before putting her phone back in the pocket of her jacket.

Then Darja turned around, walking towards her laptop again.

They had gotten further through the files than she had assumed, though she couldn't really tell from where she was standing. The headline was blurry.

"That's …" The girl looked up, her gaze briefly lasting on her before she looked away, swallowing. "That's … pretty much everything about Kingsman."

The boy had gritted his teeth, clenching his hands into fists under the table. Probably because of the pictures of his mother and sister and friends.

"I'm afraid so," Merlin said. He was even tenser than before, the frown so deep on his forehead it looked carved.

Darja simply shrugged.

He cleared his throat, focusing the two kids under his gaze. "We should inform the other agents."

Then he withdrew a pair of glasses from inside his suit, holding them towards her with compressed lips.

"I don't have eye problems," she told him, crossing her arms and shifting her weight to her left leg, the lie coming as easily off her tongue as any other.

"Just put them on," he said with a heavy sigh that made her arch her eyebrows.

He sounded … tired, in a way, and he looked shaken, somehow, and it was bothering her, because … she wasn't used to emotions being displayed this open. Well, it wasn't really _open_ – he was hiding it, but she could still see it.

Okay, maybe she was also starting to imagine things.

She bit her tongue, keeping herself from replying, and took the glasses, before cautiously unfolding them, putting them on.

The weight on the bridge of her nose was unfamiliar and it made her dizzy, causing a headache to settle behind her temples.

She looked up then, narrowing her-

Wait. _Wait_.

There were people now, filling up all the empty seats. They didn't really look like actual people though, since they were blue-ish green and spacing out and lagging like … holograms.

They _were_ holograms.

What the fuck. There hadn't been any fucking word about that on any of these fucking pages. She was sure she'd remember if something like that had come up even as a side note.

She swallowed.

They were all men, all dressed in suits, all wearing glasses, all somewhere between late thirties and mid-fifties and all fucking looking at her, two of them pretty hostile.

Amazing, really, fucking amazing.

"There has been an incident," Merlin began. The attention shifted from her. "A hitman has been hired to kill us."

She wouldn't exactly call that an incident, rather a problem or … something else.

"Fortunately," Merlin went on, smoothing the unease in the room. "We prevented lasting injuries or fatalities. However, concerning is that someone did their research on us." He turned around her laptop to show these other agents the screen.

She bit her tongue.

"It is most likely that this matter won't be resolved easily," he continued. "Due to that, I ask you to be even more careful and to report immediately if you come across anything suspicious. Stay safe."

The men nodded, before taking off their glasses and vanishing, leaving no sign behind of ever being there, but her heartbeat was still racing like crazy.

Cautiously, she untangled the pair on top of her nose from her hair, before folding it together and holding it with two fingers like she'd hold something disgusting.

The pounding inside her head didn't ease.

Silence.

Merlin's gaze lingered on something at the end of the other room, while the two kids looked at him like he had all the answers to their questions.

"So …" The boy trailed off nearly immediately, briefly glancing at her.

Darja couldn't help feeling she was the reason for his hesitation.

He breathed in, slowly, deeply, focusing on Merlin again. "What do we do now?"

"We go home," he answered, seeming as stern as he always did, but there was something about his way of saying it that made it sound like it wasn't as easy as that and …

It was getting hard to find the right words.

"The last few days have been exhausting," he added now as if it the two kids would end up understanding better, but she guessed he was trying to say something else instead, something he couldn't say directly because of her … for whichever reason.

The other two agents exchanged a short glance.

Darja arched her eyebrows, resisting the urge to run a hand through her hair since she didn't want to draw any attention – there had been enough already.

There was hesitation about it, so much hesitation, like … she had a feeling there was an unspoken conversation happening, just through exchanged glances and … she didn't necessarily like it, mainly, because she couldn't follow it.

The two didn't seem like they approved of what Merlin was suggesting there, no, and they looked like they were going to protest, argue, but … they didn't.

She had no idea if that was a general thing or if it was only now because she was around and no one wanted to start fighting in front of her.

Slowly, she tapped her fingers against her upper arm as the silence dragged on, long and tense and heavy, making it harder to breathe and keep all these thoughts, memories, at bay.

After another, exchanged glance, the two kids got up, carefully, like they wanted to do everything but that, and walked out of the room.

The thud of the door had something final, something, that pressed the air out of her lungs.

"Let me guess," she said then with a sigh, sounding hoarse, looking at him. "You won't just let me stay at another hotel?"

"No," he answered, confirming the fear that had been rising hot and cold in her throat, choking her.

She glared at him, in lack of words and in lack of trust in her voice.

There was more silence, more heavy and pressing, more screaming of her thoughts, and he was watching her and she didn't want him to, because she didn't know how long she could keep all of that up without letting something slip past her control.

"What do you have in mind then?" she asked, her voice now lower but steadier, although there was a tremble of her vocal chords.

He didn't answer right away … which was strange.

"You … do have something, don't you?" she asked then, drawing her eyebrows together, since … he just seemed like the type of guy who always had an idea, no matter what it was about.

"Well," he said, causing her eyebrows to wander up further, clearing his throat.

"Honestly," she muttered, closing her eyes for a moment and drawing in a deep breath to brace herself. "Just lock me up in some room for the night."

He frowned, studying her for a moment and it took every bit of self-control she had left not to bite her lip and appear insecure.

"That would make you more of a prisoner than someone who is willing to cooperate," he replied.

She wasn't sure what it was about his answer that was surprising but … something just was and it shouldn't be, because it would be normal, logical, but she had been in enough shitty situations and there had been enough shitty people so … it' wasn't what she had been bracing herself for and it send her stumbling for an answer.

"That's your only concern?"

His frown deepened and he studied her again, too long, too intensely.

"It's one of them," he answered. "Another one is that you would figure out the code for the lock."

It wasn't the thing he had wanted to say.

"I have my orders," she told him though she didn't want to because she hated the orders and she hated how she felt like losing control because nothing about this conversation was going like she had imagined it too, because he wasn't the kind of person she had expected him to be, and there was something that made her ears ring and her nerves tingle painfully.

"I figured you had," he answered, his frown deepening once more.

She opened her mouth and shut it again, not sure whether to be impressed or terrified.

Well, fuck. He was smart. Shit. If he had figured that out, it wouldn't be long before-

 _Fuck_.

"And, I suppose, those orders include not killing us?" he asked then and she was so sure she was going to throw up.

"Unless it's self-defense," she answered, the words nearly getting stuck halfway.

He nodded, slowly.

And- shit, fuck, it was … sure, she had figured he was smart, but not that smart, not that good at putting things together and … it sucked, because … well, for one, there was this thing with her boss and how much he'd hate if anyone figured out these connections, relations, whatever, and second, there was a whole bunch of personal things he should not know. Definitely not.

It was bad. It was really, really bad.

There was silence, again, and it was getting too much, and it was another problem adding to all of that and it was another risk and she was already neck-deep in both of these things.

He was looking at her again, studying her, like that would end up telling him what to do, whether to trust her … but he was already somehow trusting her, in a way – if he wasn't, he wouldn't have given her her weapons.

And he knew that … somehow.

He seemed older now – the wrinkles on his face were deeper and the shadows darker.

After another moment, he pushed himself to his feet, one hand lingering on the table like he needed to steady himself.

She watched him with arched eyebrows, careful, not sure what to expect, biting her tongue hard enough to draw blood, but the pain wasn't grounding her like it usually did; it just added to this mixture of everything, making it all too much.

He nodded towards the door, motioning her to follow as he strolled ahead.

She wasn't too sure about this, honestly, but she currently wasn't sure about anything, so …

Darja placed her glasses on the table, before quickly shutting her laptop and stuffing it into its bag – it nearly slipped through her fingers.

She slung the bag over her shoulder, picking up the other one, catching up with him at the door.

Her heart was racing in her chest and her breaths were coming a bit too short and it was stupid because there was no actual, genuine reason for that, and it was all alright, really, seriously, god, what was she even worrying about?

She just had to breathe, in and out, and stop thinking – she just needed to make it through just a little longer, just a few more minutes. She could do that. Really.

He lead her through the building again, through hallways that looked all the same, until they stood in the room in which she had woken up this morning.

"It's the best I can do," he said, nearly sounding like he was apologizing but … she didn't get it, she didn't get any of it, and … it was good, yeah, and she wouldn't have complained – okay, not right now at least – and …

Her brain was failing to understand, to put all of these pieces rightfully together, to make sense out of anything.

"Yeah," she muttered, looking around – she still didn't like the very idea she had suggested, but it was okay, better than most other things she could have come up with and she'd rather not find out what he could have come up with … though, now, there were doubts about that, doubts about her judgment and … it wasn't helping.

Her phone buzzed. Repeatedly. Again.

It wasn't a good sign, not for anything, because Jack never changed his mind so quickly, so something must have happened or come up or … it just wasn't something good.

She pulled it out of her pocket.

It was really Jack.

She took the call, trying to ignore the lump in her throat and the shaking of her hands.

"What is it?" she asked, too aware of Merlin's presence and that he had just turned around to look at her and – she _knew_ that it all was ridiculous, god, yes, she knew, she knew just too well, because, actually, there was no reason to panic, and yet here she was, panicking.

"Can you get the person in charge on the phone?" He sounded strained, just a tiny, tiny bit, but it was enough to make her have an absolutely horrible feeling about it.

"Sure," she replied, the tremble in her throat returning. She swallowed it down. "Why?"

"Later," he answered.

"Alright," she muttered quietly.

Biting her tongue again, she held her phone towards the agent.

He gave it a brief glance, then her. She just shrugged.

With another frown on his face, he took the device, cautiously, not even brushing her fingers.

Darja crossed her arms, waiting, trying not to think, trying not to … she didn't know. She was just trying to keep it all together for just a little longer though she had never been good at that.

Merlin's expression grew more and more confused the longer the conversation went on and all his answers were something along the lines of 'yes', 'perhaps' and 'under some circumstances'.

He glanced at the display. It was dark.

"He just hangs up when he has nothing else to say," she pointed out, shifting her weight to her left leg.

He nodded. "Who was he?" he asked, handing the phone back to her.

"My boss," she answered, slipping the device back into the pocket of her jacket. "Now, you mind leaving?"

There was another look at her, too long and too intense, like he could see thatthere was something wrong with her and whatwas wrong with her.

He didn't ask though, simply nodded and left, contrary to her expectations, pulling the door shut behind him.

Her breath was trembling too hard in her chest and she nearly dropped the bags when she put them down.

It … she was trying to tell herself that it all was still fine, that everything would be fine, but it wasn't, nothing was, and there was this fear now, crushing her, freezing her in place, this realization hitting her hard enough to make her choke on her own breaths – there was the reality of it she couldn't escape any longer.

She had failed a job. She had actually _failed_ it.

Normally, she'd be dead, so, so dead. Or worse. Probably worse. Definitely worse.

And … she knew what her boss usually did to people who failed. And it didn't feel right that she got off so easily because she was part of some inner circle or whatever – it didn't feel right that she didn't really have to pay for her mistakes.

And it was bullshit, she knew, in a way at least, because she couldn't have done something about that scar and the morphine, it was out of her control, but in the end, she had still failed and that was all that mattered, wasn't it?

Her muscles were cramping now, shaking so violently she was surprised she could still stand and her breaths were coming flat, too flat, so flat that her sight was starting to spin.

It wasn't the first of these episodes and it wouldn't be the last and it was okay – she knew, rationally, but emotionally, she was desperate and scared and she didn't know if she could find enough strength to do the only thing that helped, after all-

Fuck. The last time she had been with Ylvi and- _shit_.

She gritted her teeth until her jaws hurt and clenched her fists until her shoulders were aching from the tension, trying not to think, just trying not to think about her, about the regret, about how it all hurt and how she missed her and how everything had been okay for a while and how it was eating her alive.

The taste of blood was heavy on her tongue, making her want to vomit until the acid burned through her throat.

Right. Right.

She just had to get the box in front of her laptop bag.

It was all just that bad because she had been caught up in an unintended withdrawal. Just side effects of that. They just made it all worse.

Just that.

Slowly, she released a breath she had held for too long, before squatting down and withdrawing the wooden box from the pocket, then cracking it open.

Neither the syringes nor the ampules were damaged.

Good.

She'd manage the rest.

* * *

 _Dobriy den'_ \- translates to "good day"

 _Da_ \- translates to "yes"


	7. Chapter 7: Information

The knock startled her.

Her head shot up. She pointed the gun at the door.

Silence.

Had … there really been a noise? Or was she imagining it? No, she couldn't – neither memories nor nightmares started with knocks, they started … with worse things.

So, no actual need for that kind of reaction; the lack of sleep simply made her jumpy.

Slowly, she let out a breath she had held for too long, lowering her gun but still holding on to it with a knuckle-white grip, just in case. It was a fragile kind of comfort, she was aware, but … there wasn't much giving her comfort at all.

"Yes?" Darja asked after a couple more moments, having made sure her voice wouldn't give in.

"Good morning," Merlin replied from the other side, the words muffled, and yet it had something strangely reassuring. Maybe it was because of the door. Yeah. Probably. "There is something I want to talk about with you."

"Yeah, alright," she muttered, not sure if he could hear her.

"Would you come outside?" he questioned, sounding like he always did, calm and stern and all of that.

Maybe it was … she didn't know, maybe it was a thing here to talk about stuff face to face or maybe there was something important or maybe he just wanted to see how she reacted or maybe he was being polite or … she didn't know. Maybe there was no reason behind it, aside from being a normal, decent human being and she was overthinking it because she was a hitman and most hitmen weren't decent or even human, only beings.

"Isn't the door locked?" she asked, a bitter taste on her tongue.

"No," he answered after a brief moment and she imagined he frowned. "It never was."

That-

Her next breath was unsteady, trembling in her chest, threatening to rush out again, and she was struggling for a reply, opening and shutting her mouth a couple of times, gasping for words, glad he couldn't see any of it.

She had been so sure the door would be locked that she hadn't even tried, because … she didn't like locked rooms. Nope. Definitely not. And, considering how bad the panic had already been – she hadn't wanted to make it worse.

But, honestly, it wasn't even that, it was that an unlocked door had something to do with trust and trust was deadly and as nice as it was – in a strange way, because she had never been the person to be easily trusted –, it was …

It was stupid. It was really, really stupid and she was stupid and it was making it all harder, because there was a chance she'd end up having to kill them, him. Granted, it wasn't as big of a chance as she was making it out to be, but … still.

She swallowed, burying those thoughts. They didn't exactly stay buried.

"A minute," she said, knowing it would be more than a minute. She had to say _something_ though.

God.

With a sigh, she briefly closed her eyes, focusing on keeping her breathing as even as possible.

Then she put her gun on the bed, letting go of it with shaking fingers, before slowly pushing herself to her feet. Surprisingly, her legs didn't give in under her.

She went over to where she had put down her bags, and opened the bigger one, looking through it until she found a pair of jeans, a pullover, underwear, and socks.

Darja changed into the new clothes, running her fingers a couple of times through her hair. After that, she stuffed her gun into the back of her pants, slipping her two sheathed knives beneath her sleeve, and putting her phone into a pocket of her pants.

Gradually, she crossed the room. She rather wouldn't, since she didn't feel ready for any kind of interaction, and even the weight of her weapons against her skin wasn't calming her now, but she took a deep breath anyway, bracing herself.

The handle was cold to the touch when she pressed it down and stepped outside.

Merlin was leaning against the opposite wall, one hand in the pocket of his pants, wearing another dark suit.

"Has something happened?" she asked, quietly pulling the door shut behind her and crossing her arms as she leaned against it.

"No," he answered with one of those small frowns that never seemed to leave as he studied her, looking paler in the white light. "Did you expect something to?"

She shrugged. "Why do you want to talk then?"

He didn't reply right away, their gazes locked for a moment – and it was strange, though not that _strange_ , and she didn't feel uneasy either, yet …

"It's about your client," he answered. "I want to find out who they are."

"I don't know anything about them," she replied with an arch of her eyebrows.

His frown deepened.

"I find it hard to believe that you work for someone you don't know," he said.

"I get paid for killing people," she reminded him. "Not for violating my client's privacy." She sounded rougher than she wanted to and … she had no idea why she had the urge to do something about it.

"It's better not to know," she went on, calmer. "When you're a hitman, the people who hire you also know how to hire another hitman to have you killed. And they will do that if they think you've let something about them slip. So, if you don't know anything about them, they can't take out their paranoia on you."

"It's a form of self-defense," he concluded, nodding at her like he was approving of it.

"Well, you could say that," she muttered, rather thinking of it as worker safety – it was Jack's policy; she hadn't come up with it.

Silence settled in between them, stretching. Darja pretended to be suddenly very interested in the walls, ceiling, and floor because … she didn't really know. She didn't want to find out.

After what felt like forever, she looked at him again, drawing up her eyebrows.

He returned her gaze with another frown and she couldn't help wondering what he'd look like without one of them.

"Did that destroy all of your plans?" she asked but there was no edge to it, no, it was just … a normal question. Without provoking or anything. And maybe she was imagining it but she was sure her voice was sounding softer too, too soft.

"No," he answered, taking in a breath. "You said, they sent you a mail?"

"Yeah," she replied with a nod. "But, see, the internet allows people to stay hidden and anonymous if they try hard enough."

"I know," he told her, still even and leveled, but there was tension in his jaw that hadn't been there before.

"Most people your age don't even know how to turn on a cellphone," she retorted with a snort.

Merlin took a moment to react, seemingly collecting himself and swallowing whatever reply had originally been on the tip of his tongue.

"I am the head of Kingman's tech-department," he told her then.

"You're shitting me," she said, nearly choking on the words. "You've gotta be shitting me."

He had to be, he just had to, after all-

Shit. Shit shit shit _shit_ , he wasn't, no, he clearly wasn't and … fuck.

There hadn't been a single fucking word about that either, not on any of these fucking pages, she was sure of that.

And- _fuck_ , he had have had access to her laptop when she hadn't been looking and she hadn't thought too much about it, not until now, because she hadn't known.

" _Fuck_ ," she hissed out loud, trying not to clench her fists and grit her teeth although it would be the easiest thing to do – there was a tremble going from the back of her mind to her toes, setting off panic and fear.

"You didn't know?" he questioned as if it wasn't obvious enough but he seemed … surprised, in a way, but … she didn't know. She wasn't looking long enough to find out.

"No," she said, nearly snapping at him, glaring at him.

It wasn't his fault – not exactly at least and maybe it wasn't _all_ hers either, but there had been signs before, now thinking back, and she should have seen it and she should have been more careful and she should have stopped and considered and she definitely shouldn't have believed everything she was told.

Yet, it was mostly her client's fault … or was it?

She didn't know, she couldn't know – it didn't matter because she was neck-deep in trouble anyway since Merlin would end up digging up these things.

"Seems like the client didn't think it was worth mentioning," she added, breathing out. Her voice was low and shaking with something he hopefully mistook for anger … but he was too smart to do that, wasn't he?

"I suppose," he said quietly, his gaze lingering on her and she couldn't tell whether he had already noticed. "They simply wanted you to kill me, after all."

"Well, actually," she replied, swallowing because it was getting difficult to speak. "They wanted you kept alive after I got the information so that you could see all the others die."

He blinked. Once, twice, the color draining from his face, and he stared, not capable of speaking, the idea apparently horrific to him.

Merlin cleared his throat in an attempt to get back his usual composure, but it was falling apart at the edges, something slipping through – he needed a little too long to focus his gaze and it was a little too empty and going through her and there was a small tremble in the tips of his fingers when he pushed up his glasses.

"I see," he said, the words coming out too hoarse and too slow. "But of that was your job, why did you threaten to kill me?" He had been lowering his hand that was now stopping where she had cut him, his fingers hovering over his throat.

"Death threats usually work miracles," she said with a shrug, barely managing to keep her voice from failing her.

He slowly tilted his head to an agreeing nod, seeming busy enough with himself not to pay any attention to her. Relying on that too much would be another mistake though.

"Anyway," she said. "What do you plan on doing now?"

In all honesty, she couldn't care less, but she needed something to focus on before she went insane – or whatever; going insane would mean she had been sane before and she was pretty sure that wasn't the case.

He studied her again. "Do clients misinform you often?"

"No," she answered. "Most don't dare to."

His frown deepened and he was certainly attempting to put all of these pieces together, to find some way to make a whole picture out of it, but she didn't think – she _hoped_ – this was something he'd manage … if he did, she had to kill him.

"Well, then," he said, surprisingly not pressing the topic. "Have you tried tracking the mail you received?"

She shook her head, afraid her voice would fail her. "I know it can be done and all, but, first, I didn't have time for that and, second, if you contact a hitman you make sure no one can find you, so why bother?" It wasn't exactly a lie but it came close, considering the main reason was, she wasn't good enough to do that without getting herself into even more trouble.

"I could try," he offered.

She arched her eyebrows at him. "I would have to give you access to my email account," she said. "And I'm not doing that."

"It might give us a lead," he argued.

"Maybe," she replied. "Maybe it will also give you more information about me and that's a risk I'm not going to take."

He already had enough, enough to destroy her without wanting to, because … because she didn't want to remember things he'd bring up – she had tried forgetting them ever since they had happened.

"You've already made a copy of my hard drive," she added with a glare that wasn't as sharp as usually and she hated it.

"Did you expect me not to?" he questioned, cool and distanced.

"It's not about that," she snapped.

It was just that not even her boss could erase everything about her, how she could never vanish and pretend the first half of her life never happened.

Her leg was tingling, burning up, and she bit her tongue, ignoring the taste of blood, trying to push it all down, to make it all go away, to not let it come back.

Merlin looked like he was going to ask, but … he didn't, again – maybe he thought she wasn't going to answer either way and, honestly, she'd prefer that over anything else.

"We still need information," he stated though it seemed to take him a lot to say that instead of anything else and it didn't make sense – she had thought he was going to argue with her until she agreed or something, not give in, and … it honestly didn't make sense, not rationally, and he was all the rational guy, wasn't he?

"I'm not saying anything different," she muttered.

"But you make it very hard to work something out," he remarked and there was the anger she had been expecting, but it wasn't that much, it was just … a trace. Barely.

"The last time something like this happened, it all was a little easier," she retorted.

"Why so?" he asked and she glared at him.

"For one," she said. "I didn't have to worry about people trying to dig up things they shouldn't." There was nothing she could do about it now but wait and maybe burn the files before he read them … which wouldn't happen, probably. "Second, I had help. From my boss. And it involved a lot of illegal things – torture, kidnapping, murder. Which you wouldn't do."

"No, I wouldn't," he said with a sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose.

He looked tired now and … fuck, she didn't know. She didn't know what to do or if there was anything to do at all, because like this, they were stuck and sitting around doing nothing, waiting for something to happen, sucked, it really, really sucked and yet she cared more about herself than anything else.

"Dunno," she said then, not even sure what she was referring to. "Since you're probably not for bribing people-" This wasn't Russia. It wasn't going to work anyway. "I guess asking around would be an option; I do have some contacts, some people who owe me something." Or people who owed Jack something, but that wasn't that important now.

"Coincidentally," he said, looking everything but satisfied. "There are also some people who owe me a favour."

She nodded, humming in response.


	8. Chapter 8: Working with Hitmen

He met up with Darja at a café after they had gone their ways to call in favours. The look on her face was hard, distant, speaking for itself, and there was a strange feeling in his stomach, something that left a bad taste on his tongue.

Rational speaking, he had no reason to be disappointed at all. From the moment she had suggested it, he had known that it would be wasted time, an action taking just for the sake of it, in hope of calming someone – either her or him, he couldn't even tell.

Receiving information was always a difficult part. This however …

He took a sip from the coffee, welcoming the warmth taking the weariness off his shoulders.

Merlin glanced at the woman sitting across from him. She didn't appear upset, rather like she was burying her emotions again, holding them behind another mask. Yet, he noticed the tension in her jaw. The utter calmness she usually showed was missing as well – she drummed her fingers against the table, restlessly watching the people around them as if they had an answer to her questions.

Perhaps, it was simply a way of avoiding to talk to him.

A moment passed and he returned his attention to the tablet in his hands, continuing to browse through reports on the explosion, although they all said the same thing, only paraphrased over and over. He had given up trying to find something new.

Any other news read like nothing had ever happened, except for a number of interviews and discussions about terrorism. It shouldn't surprise him as much as it did after last year's events. The world always went on somehow.

Movement. He looked up.

She had withdrawn her phone from the pocket of her pants, glancing at it, then placing it on the table with the display facing down.

"God," she muttered, running a hand through her hair and closing her eyes.

Merlin studied her for a second, considering whether to reply, when she focused on him.

She looked … tired. Exhausted.

"Do you do this often?" she asked. "Run around and come up with nothing?"

"No," he replied, slowly. It seemed as if she either didn't like silence or couldn't stand it for longer periods of time. He didn't blame her; it was simply an odd trait to have for a hitman. "Do you?"

She arched her brows at him, asking him if he was kidding her.

"No," she answered anyway, an edge to her voice he hadn't heard before.

He didn't think he had offended he. If he had, she would make it clear.

She looked away, picking up the cup of tea that had been sitting in front of her before taking a careful sip. She lost the tension in her shoulders – forcing herself to, forcing herself to get rid of the anger.

He didn't understand; he had assumed, anger was some kind of armour to her. However, as long as she was following her orders, it would certainly not help the cause.

"You usually have a lead?" she guessed, fixing him under her gaze again.

"Usually, yes," he confirmed, setting down the tablet. "Normally, we choose to interfere, not react to being confronted ourselves."

"So you're the kind of people who try saving the world," she concluded, her eyebrows wandering up a few inches.

"We did, in fact, save the world," he replied, lowering his voice.

"Oh, great," she muttered, cutting him off before he could continue. "You want a badge for that?" She sighed and put down the cup. Her teeth were digging into her lip now – a habit, apparently.

"You seem … nervous," he told her then when she didn't stop, after a moment of having given it some thoughts.

"Yeah, well, I'm not," she answered, looking at him, holding completely still for a second. "I … just lack a couple hours of sleep."

He didn't think it was about the sleep itself but the things that had kept her awake, yet, he knew better than to ask, so he simply gave a curt nod, returning his attention to the article he had been reading.

She picked up her phone, spending some time with it. After a while, she put it back down to take another sip.

"You've got an idea what to do now?" she asked, her voice rougher now.

Merlin looked up. There was something in her eyes now, something he could neither quite name nor place, something he hadn't seen earlier – she was restless, she didn't want to stay, she wanted to get this over with. These facts added up to something.

"You won't like it," he told her with a small frown.

"It includes waiting, right?" she asked without missing a heartbeat. "Of course it does." There was another sigh, heavy, resigned.

"To a degree," he replied with a tilt of his head, noticing the scepticism in her eyes as she raised one brow at him. "The next step would be to wait for the police report."

"I hope you don't mean the official one," she replied. This time, there was no edge. He … didn't mind.

"No," he answered, the corners of his mouth twitching upwards for a second.

"At least," she muttered, picking up her cup again before she returned her attention to their surroundings, the other patrons of the café, everything but him.

Merlin refreshed the front page of _The Guardian_ , barely skimming the headlines since he didn't expect to see anything he hadn't already.

But he did.

 _Second explosion in London_.

He blinked. Slowly, once, twice. He hadn't misread it.

There … was a strange feeling settling in his stomach, weighing it down.

He clicked on the title, waiting for the site to load before he scanned the article.

Another hotel. The one he had been at yesterday. Same details, as far as he could tell.

There was a video at the end. It looked like … an official press conference. He pressed on 'play', the sound transmitted via his glasses.

The man talking was a certain Joshua Chromwell, a detective for the London city police – the expression on his face was stern and set. He explained, they were investigating the situation and stated, this wasn't a terrorist attack.

"You look like the world just ended," Darja remarked, pulling him from his thoughts.

Wordlessly, he turned the tablet towards her, setting it on the table.

"Yeah, he'd be hotter if he didn't look like he'd kill someone, but I don't think that's causing you an identity crisis," she commentated, glancing at him. "He's not that hot."

It … wasn't the reaction he had been expecting.

"I thought you were-" He cut himself off.

"There's more than gay and straight, Merlin," she told him with a small arch of her eyebrows. "But it's not about that, right?"

She … seemed casual, genuinely casual – which was strange, because she had been defensive about everything personal until now. And sexuality was very personal.

"What?" she asked with a small snort. "Don't tell me you're totally fine with gay people but not with all the other."

"I am … simply surprised," he answered, having trouble finding the right words. "That you revealed such an information to me."

"It's not my fingerprint," she said with a roll of her eyes. "And it's also not going to give you access to all the files that exist about me, so what?"

"Nothing," he said with a shake of his head.

She was right, naturally, and yet … it was nothing he had seen coming and perhaps the surprise worried him more than he wanted to admit.

"Anyway," she went on, calmly, tapping her finger against her cup. "What's it about? The article, I mean?"

"Didn't you read the headline?" he questioned.

She gave a careless shrug. "Hadn't exactly bothered."

Merlin bit back a sigh, slowly exhaling through his nose. "There has been a second explosion," he told her. "It took place in the hotel we visited yesterday."

The look on her face grew stern, but she only nodded, thinking.

It wasn't the reaction he had expected – again – and he felt like he was understanding her less and less from minute to minute. Perhaps, however, his opinion of her had already been so set he hadn't thought about changing it. It was a mistake he shouldn't have made.

"It's not totally surprising," she said then with another shrug as if she wanted to play it off, act like it meant nothing at all to her.

"Why isn't it?" he asked with a frown, leaning forward a little, putting his hands on the table – he wasn't close enough to cause her discomfort … he hoped; he wasn't intending on making her uneasy.

"Well," she said, tilting her head, hesitating then as if there was something she didn't want to say, which wasn't unexpected, because there seemed to be a lot of things she wasn't telling him. "It's a bit difficult, but let's just say, I would have been more surprised if they had left it at one explosion and some random amateur."

His frown deepened.

"Look," she went on. "People have tried killing me before. They're usually more persistent and efficient than that."

"I don't think it's just that," he replied, weighing his words again, because there was tension in her voice, indicating that she wanted to change this topic as quickly as possible.

Darja shot him a brief glare, then tapping her fingers against the table one more time.

"It's not that important," she said but he had a feeling it was entirely as important as he thought it was.

Merlin drew in another breath, pushing up his glasses.

Darja simply arched her eyebrows at him, another question hanging unspoken between them.

"What do we do now?" she asked after a moment, running a hand through her hair. There was no trace of emotion left in her now, like nothing had ever happened. It wasn't making him uncomfortable, it was just … concerning him. In a way. Because hiding feelings like that didn't speak for a healthy mind, couldn't.

"I … am not sure," he admitted, not wanting to.

She watched him for a moment, before leaning forward a couple of inches. "Well, if they wanted to kill me, they could have done that properly by now," she said. He had assumed, she would make a comment about the weakness he had shown.

"I mean, they knew where I was staying," she continued, a small smile tugging her lips, making him think she had done it on purpose … or perhaps she was simply amused. "They knew what I could do. They still send that guy."

"Yes," he said. "It rather appears, they want you to … stay away."

"As stupid as it sounds, it might be just that," she answered. Her smile was more barring teeth than smile. "So, big question, why would they want me to get off the job so quickly?"

"Perhaps they figured, you'd have a personal interest in hunting them," he suggested.

"Yes, _now_ , but they blew up the first apartment before that," she argued. "Why?"

It was the key question. Unfortunately, it was also the toughest to answer.

"They should know I'm not backing off that easily," she said then, taking a second, looking at him again. "No hitman would, really, because everything is about reputation and I'm not letting mine get ruined by some asshole."

He simply tilted his head to a nod, since he had figured the business worked like that, although he had also briefly considered that she simply was generally very much concerned about her reputation.

She was about to say something but before she could get that far she snorted. "As another option," she said, probably not meaning any of it. "You could also make a list of all the people that hate you enough to want you dead. And you could also make a list of all the people who know that much about you and your organisation."

"I suppose, those would be very short lists," he answered after a moment of consideration.

"I didn't mean it," she answered flatly.

"I'm aware," he told her. "I considered it anyway."

Surprise crossed her face, briefly, vanishing again just as quickly.

In the new silence, he finished his cup of coffee and put it back down, while she picked up her phone.

"Hey, so," she began, drawing his attention, looking up from behind the device. "I found out a friend of mine – he's also a hitman – is here. And he'd meet me, tell me what he knows, whether he figured something out. I'm gonna meet him and there's nothing you can do about it. Though, you might still want to come along, for reasons?"

Merlin blinked, needing a moment to notice the question.

"And that would be all right by him?" he asked.

"He'd probably not want you to see him," she answered. "He's, well, careful with these things. But I guess he wouldn't mind if you … I don't know, stayed around a corner or something."

"You guess?" he questioned and she gave a shrug, but her expression stayed serious.

It wasn't a guarantee and currently, he did have plenty of reasons to distrust her and friends of her, and yet … it was an option, a chance. Something. And he still had nothing.

He ended up nodding slowly.

"Great," she said without any enthusiasm. "Let's go."

"What do you mean?"

Darja rolled her eyes. "What I said," she replied. "Let's go."

"You didn't mention you wanted to meet him now," he answered, his frown growing deeper.

She just gave another shrug like she didn't care. "I think that's the least important deal," she said, drumming her fingers against the table again.

He sighed, apparently giving in with that gesture, because there was a twitching in her lips.

"Let's pay first though," he said and she gave him another amused smile.

"Alright," she said, her eyes glittering with something that wasn't quite mischief.

She leaned back, slipping her phone into the pocket of her pullover, the smile continuing to linger on her lips until after he had paid.

When she put on her jacket though, it had softened, grown into … something else, something more natural.

Merlin didn't dwell too long on it, closed his coat instead because it had gotten colder.

Darja walked on ahead.

She didn't say anything, didn't tell him where they were going, but he knew London well enough to recognize where he was.

It was getting dark by now, the sun sinking deeper on the horizon, bathing it in deep red and warm orange and setting the windows aflame.

Street lamps turned on, one by one.

They continued for a couple of minutes until he found himself between skyscrapers and tall residential building, the darkness washing over them, filling the alleys.

Darja slowed down, the last rays of sunlight catching on her skin, making it seem nearly golden on her cheekbones, but her expression was hard.

She motioned him to wait, putting a finger on her lips.

He nodded without thinking much about it, after all … he had come this far, going back now would be a mistake.

She turned around, taking the next turn and vanishing then. The noise of traffic was muffled between the buildings.

The night wrapped around him, leaving him standing there, suddenly not so sure any longer.

Her steps were quiet, barely audible. They stopped.

"Hey," she said, her voice soft, softer than he had ever heard it.

"Hi," a man replied. There was the shuffle of clothes. "How are you?" He also had a Russian accent, heavier and stronger.

There was no verbal answer; he could imagine her reaction just fine though – a simple shrug like she didn't care but there was always more to it.

"So-" she went on, the clicking of a lighter following. "You know anything?"

The rushing by of a car drowned the answer, if there was one.

"Come on," she said, sighing. "Anything?"

"What do you expect?" the man replied with a snort. "It's not like I know everything."

There was more silence or perhaps they were speaking too quietly for him to understand. Merlin couldn't tell.

"Sorry," the man said although he didn't sound sorry at all.

She didn't answer.

Again, steps, and a couple of seconds later, Darja was standing in front of him. The darkness made the shadows under her eyes, the tension of her jaw, the grim line of her mouth, stand out more.

Slowly, Merlin shook his head, drawing in the cold air that threatened to get stuck in his throat.

She nodded towards the way they had come from.

He returned the gesture, following her, when she sat into motion.

* * *

hello, irregular update schedule.


	9. Chapter 9: Theories

The resignation hadn't left the next morning. Instead, it had grown to the point where he feared it would crush him.

He didn't know whether there was anything to do, anything that could be done; could being the important word in that sentence. It was … a problem, mildly put; realistically speaking it was a catastrophe.

Slowly, he drew in a breath while he kept those thoughts to himself

His office appeared foreign to him – too big, too dark, although the sun had risen hours ago, with a sense of immediate threat creeping up on him.

Merlin didn't like it, mainly because it were vague feelings. He had never been the kind of man to get distracted by these so easily and let them influence him, yet, it was exactly what was happening.

He let out a sigh.

Darja raised her head to study him, having arched an eyebrow, done pretending to be busy with her phone. She was lounging in the arm chair in front of his desk, her legs swung about one rest and her back leaning against the other one.

Her choice of clothes was the same as it had been yesterday – oversized pullover, jeans, trainers – but she still didn't look like anyone else would. There was nothing relaxed about it, nothing calm, nothing … he didn't know. There was just something drawing his attention, something out of place, something that didn't quite fit the picture.

Her eyebrow wandered up further.

"What?" she asked with a small snort. "Do I look that bad?"

"On the contrary," he said. "I was simply wondering how you manage to seem to stick out, no matter what you wear."

"Must be my charms," she replied with a dry twitch of her lips. "They're deadly or so I've heard."

He frowned at her. She meant it as a joke, but he didn't find it funny.

She gave him a humourless smile.

It was banter, exchanged comments without attached personal insults. And it was … nice, in a way, since it eased the tension. Somehow.

A polite, three-part knock interrupted his thoughts.

"Come in," he called.

The door opened.

Eggsy entered.

Merlin tilted his head, nodding at the agent, before motioning him to sit down.

The young man hesitated for a moment before sinking into the other chair.

Darja barely glanced at him, then studying the clouds outside, running a hand through her hair. Then she was still again, the only movement of her body the rising and falling of her chest.

The agent looked at him. There was the burden of hope in his eyes.

Merlin took a seat as well.

"The goal is to receive information," he began. Every word appeared out of order, out of context, out of meaning.

Darja fixed him under her gaze. Her calmness was strange, especially in contrast to yesterday – he didn't think it was because she had caught up on sleep, since these shadows under her eyes hadn't vanished, these shadows that didn't belong there, that were too dark to be normal, and there was a restlessness in them he couldn't explain.

Her lips twitched and she opened her mouth as if there was something she wanted to say, but she shut it again. Weirdly so.

Eggsy glanced at her.

"And how do we do that?" she asked after a moment anyway, when the silence dragged on, although she didn't seem to care one bit for the answer.

It wasn't surprising, and yet, it was. He figured, she was just better at hiding that impatience now or rather more capable, since she wasn't busy hiding other things.

He returned her gaze for a moment, thinking, and she returned is – there was something about her he couldn't quite place, something that didn't make sense, like always.

"There are old files," he said, and she arched her eyebrows at him, silently questioning if he was kidding her.

Eggsy only nodded, the doubt obvious on his face.

Merlin felt bad for even suggesting it..

These people couldn't have done this and not left any trace at all. It wasn't possible, it shouldn't be, it couldn't be – there had to be something. They simply had to find it. It wasn't that hard.

In theory, that was. In reality, it was … harder than he had ever thought it would be.

The powerlessness was taking up his mind, swallowing him whole. His options were limited. He had never experienced anything like that before.

He was helpless, and Darja was excellent at seeing that, like she knew a little too much about him, like she was a little too good at reading people.

"So," she said then, her fingers buried in her hair – a mess of curls and waves she had, apparently, just rolled out of bed with it –, looking at him but looking right through him at the same time. "Do you actually think it's going to get any results or is it another case of doing it for the sake of it?"

Eggsy glanced at her, then at him, questioning quickly replaced by accusing and … an expression he hadn't seen before.

"What do you mean?" Merlin asked, turning his attention towards the woman.

"What I mean," she said. "Is: so you actually think looking through some dusted files is going to get any results or are you just suggesting it because you're hoping there's going to be some magical solution?" There was no edge to her words – he still felt it, behind his temples and in his chest, where it hurt most, where he knew she was right but didn't want to admit it.

"Do you have a better idea?" he questioned.

"Hey, aren't you the one with the rational thought process?" she retorted with a snort. It was a mask. Hidden beneath were the same feelings bothering him – a similarity he wouldn't have expected.

Merlin didn't know what to make out of it – this similarity, this kind of sympathy, how everything was falling apart. He had never carried falling apart with the same dignity he carried himself with.

He took a small, deep breath, drawing in the air as best as he could, holding it before releasing it again.

Darja had still fixed her gaze on him – it wasn't unsettling, not exactly, because she appeared to have stopped blaming him for anything that happened, seeming to be more herself now, whatever that meant for someone who was so trained at hiding everything about herself.

She blinked. The weight stayed on his shoulders.

It was strange – he didn't have problems with admitting that he was wrong when he was. This wasn't any different from past situations.

Darja's opinion didn't matter, whether she would be smug about it didn't matter, but he feared, he didn't want to say it because he was desperate – and that was something he didn't want to admit in front of Eggsy, possibly not even to himself, since he had no intentions of disappointing people relying on him.

The silence didn't help.

He was already taking too long to answer, he knew, and there was no good answer; there was nothing he could think of.

Darja put her feet on the ground, the carpet muffling the sound, and he knew that she had something else to say, something he wouldn't like hearing. She had this talent to always find the right words to make him struggle for a reply, to catch him by surprise.

"So," she said, placing her elbows on her knees as she looked at him, and there was a hard expression in her eyes, making him wary. "You really think it's bullshit."

Merlin would have expected an amused smile, a tuck of her lips, twitching, anything to show satisfaction, but there was only grim honesty he didn't quite understand. Perhaps, it had to do with the fact that there was someone else around and that she didn't want to show emotion because of that, but …then it would make more sense if she acted that way around him, since she didn't seem to care much about either Eggsy or Roxy.

"I would have phrased it differently," he responded with a sigh, the defeat bitter on his tongue.

Darja rolled her eyes – a simple, annoyed gesture, one too careless for this moment.

He … should be focusing on Eggsy now, apologize. He should. But disappointment was easier to handle when he hadn't actually _known_ people, hadn't called them his friends.

He had no intentions of lying.

Merlin still needed a moment too long to turn his head, to ignore her curious glance following him – it reminded him a little too much of actual amusement, like she was only taking interest in his words before twisting them around, before using them against him. It was something he could see her doing, although she was rather the type for twisting daggers. Both were dangerous – pointed, sharp, capable of destroying.

"I'm afraid it is more grave than I made it out to be," he said then, looking at the younger agent – Eggsy had been expecting it, he could see that, but he could also see that he wished he hadn't spoken at all. Merlin didn't blame him. "I'm sorry."

Darja's eyebrows wandered up, but the surprise vanished from her face as quickly as it had appeared. He had noticed that before – she wasn't exactly used to people acting normally. It shouldn't be astonishing as it was for him. Hitmen weren't agents. It wasn't comparable.

Eggsy nodded, taking it calmly – part of it was pretending.

"As it turns out, whoever planned this, has … carefully hidden their identity and any evidence that could lead to them," he went on, and the agent nodded again. "Which makes it difficult to find anything concerning them."

Once more, nodding, although there was a harder pull around his jaw, a tenser expression on his face – he was keeping back his emotions, his thoughts, the things he wanted to say. It wasn't like him at all.

"As of right now," Merlin continued, the words getting more and more difficult to speak because he couldn't help feeling like he had failed at his job, at the essential part of it, at being Merlin, but … he hadn't actually failed. No had died. They hadn't run out of time. "There is no lead. No information."

"Looking through dusted files won't solve that," Darja reminded him, quietly, her voice barely audible but he heard her anyway. It … she wasn't accusing him, she wasn't criticising him, not exactly at least, she wasn't trying to anger him – he didn't know what she was trying to achieve.

"Do you have another idea?" he asked her.

There was the glare he had been anticipating for a while. Perhaps, she was taking it personally now, thinking he was referring to her unwillingness to let him track the mail.

He didn't bother explaining that he didn't mean that, that he had given up on trying, that he wouldn't force her to do anything. This trust, if one could call it that, between them was fickle enough. And, as much as he was tempted to take every chance there was, he didn't think it would be as easy as that.

She leaned forward, a few strings of her hair falling into her face and over her shoulders, and there was the hard line of her jaw and the grim one of her mouth. It made her look like she was ready to kill, like she had killed too much already, like she would do everything to get out of this. Merlin didn't doubt it.

"Let's summarize," she said in a tone that was neither dismissive nor accusing, rather normal instead, if normal meant anything.

"These people work illegally, probably own a lot of money," she continued. "Maybe there's a whole team. At least they have a lot of intelligence and possibilities and they're not exactly shying away from public attention. And they're careful."

"And how does that help us?" Eggsy asked, studying her, despite having been as careful around her as he was around the other agents of the service, naturally distrusting due to a feeling, an instinct. It was a good one.

Darja gave him a simple glance, her eyebrows arched in a somewhat arrogant way, before she leaned back, her shoulders a little too tense. She didn't have an answer either.

The situation wore down on her as well – she was stuck with it like the rest of them was, and there was no telling how much it was actually stressing her. To him, it seemed that she was uneasy in her skin at times, that her masks didn't help, that they couldn't fully hide how she was truly feeling. Which was … surprising.

Silence settled in, briefly, but heavy to swallow and even heavier to breathe in.

Merlin … didn't know what to say. It was like he had forgotten how to have a conversation, how to apply logic and reason to any given circumstance. It was like he had forgotten how to function properly, like some words and some new feelings had thrown him so much of balance he couldn't remember all the years of experience he had.

This 'nothing' was terrifying and there hadn't been many things in the past he had found terrifying. Violence was one thing, desperation another. Absolute powerlessness though … it was one of the worst.

He felt so defeated, like he had never stood a chance, like there had never been anything he could have done from the very start – it was sinking his stomach, making a bad taste linger on his tongue, a headache pounding behind his temples.

"Like," Darja said, drawing Eggsy's and his attention. She was drumming her fingers against the armrest of the chair she was sitting in, one leg pulled in under her. "Do you have all – and I mean _all_ – the files you have on every case digitalized?"

"No," he answered, not entirely sure what she was getting at – but there was an idea forming. "The oldest one on our servers are from the early nineties."

"Let's just say," she went on, looking at him. "Your servers get hacked. Let's just assume that for a minute. There wouldn't be everything, right? On your servers, I mean. Not every mission, couldn't be." She waited until he had nodded. "But the page that listed missions was going way back into the eighties, seventies."

It made him freeze.

That meant, that someone had betrayed Kingsman long before Arthur had.

Eggsy blinked, at first staring at her, then at him.

"It's … not impossible," Merlin found himself saying. It was the most logical explanation. He didn't want it to be true.

Darja arched her eyebrows at him, and he swallowed.

A couple of moments passed. There was a knock.

"Come on in," he said, his voice nearly failing him.

The door opened and there was Roxy, not entering, standing at the threshold instead. She was pale, holding a file with white knuckles.

"If you'd excuse me," he said, rising to his feet, ignoring the glances thrown at him when he left the room.


	10. Chapter 10: Revelations

This chapter has about 7k, so you might want to take some time before reading it or split it up.

cw & tw: a bit of angst/self-hate, graphic descriptions of third/fourth degree burns (please don't google it if you have recently eaten or intend on eating soon)

* * *

Things could go better. Yeah, they could, especially this thing here.

She wouldn't exactly say it was giving her anxiety, but it was, kinda, like too much attention was making her uneasy, like being too close to people was making her want to get away, like nightmares were making her restless.

Darja wished she hadn't come up with the last thought.

The silence didn't help, never had, never would – it was the reason she started to think so much in the first place because there was nothing to distract her, nothing she could distract herself with. It felt like this quiet was pushing against her, pushing up all those memories she wanted to keep buried, spilling them and bringing them up.

She drummed her fingers against the arm rest of the chair, the muffled noise not satisfying her. Neither was the gesture. It wasn't enough to fill the silence.

Obviously, something important had come up and it wasn't looking like Merlin was going to come back any time soon, so she was probably stuck here with this kid for a while.

Great. Really, great, really fucking great.

Honestly, she couldn't say why she was angry about it. Maybe she was just angry at everything, maybe she was just angry at herself, maybe it didn't matter. Maybe this wasn't time and place to work through emotions.

Simply waiting was something she couldn't do that easily though. It was – she didn't know; it was different when she was on a job. She had a purpose then, a goal, something to focus on. Now she had nothing, only time to kill and that wasn't the same.

Sighing, she dug through the pocket of her sweater, pulling out the pack of cigarettes before putting one between her lips.

The boy threw a glance at her.

"You shouldn't smoke in here," he told her after a second of hesitation.

She lit her cigarette anyway, proceeding to snap her lighter shut and take a long drag, filling her lungs with smoke.

Darja exhaled it through her nose, arching her eyebrows at him. "Well, too late, what do you wanna do now?" There would have been a twitch of her lips, an amused smile, if the situation wasn't as bad as it was.

He studied her for a moment, possibly contemplating what to do, and, honestly, she wouldn't be surprised if he pulled some James Bond shit, some really exaggerated stunt. He seemed like the type.

Not so surprisingly, he only blinked and looked away – she didn't miss an emotion crossing his face, something between annoyance and dislike. His luck.

She took another drag. It wasn't calming her like they always said, but she couldn't remember the last time smoking had actually calmed her. It was only a habit, a bad and unhealthy one which was enough reason to get rid of it. She hadn't, hadn't wanted to, not really able to say why.

The silence returned. She couldn't say whether she preferred it over a conversation, but she wasn't going to start one just to find out, because the only thing she'd like to do as of this moment was getting drunk. Or doing drugs. Both sounded good, actually.

The kid was studying her. He kept glancing at her.

The thing was, he looked like … she didn't know, like she stepped on a puppy, maybe his puppy – not that she would do that intentionally and if she did unintentionally, she'd apologize a thousand times, but … still. He had to know she had killed people, more than she could count, and he had never looked at her like that before.

Sighing, she ran a hand through her hair, turning around towards him when it got too annoying.

"Do you have a problem?" she asked, not … sounding like she had thought she would; she was neither exactly snapping at him but neither was she asking a normal question.

He didn't reply right away, making her think he wasn't going to reply at all.

"So, you like being a hitman and all?" he asked then, quietly, with an accent she hadn't noticed before. It wasn't the question she had been expecting.

"It's just a job," she answered with a roll of her eyes. It wasn't; it had been a way out, it had been an option she had been given and she had taken it.

"You _kill_ people for a living," he replied, his voice hovering between shock and … she didn't know, anger, but anger seemed too big of a word. He wasn't angry, he just didn't understand.

"It's not-" She cut herself off, shaking her head. "Honestly, I don't care enough to explain." She shrugged, still wishing she hadn't said anything at all, because … sure, she could have said worse things, more personal things, but the conversation wasn't over, she was afraid, and she didn't want to find out what could slip her.

"Why'd you become a hitman then?" he asked and she glared at him. Unfortunately, it wasn't intimidating him; she hadn't assumed it would, he seemed … he seemed a little out of place in his suit and in this building, like he was still kinda new to it but settling in, slowly, and … it was just a feeling, an instinct, like so many things were.

"I didn't become one," she corrected him, taking a long drag from her cigarette to stop herself from saying more. "It happened. I was given the option and I didn't say no."

The boy blinked. Darja regretted speaking.

"Oh, come on," she muttered, huffing. "Don't act like you don't kill people too. You'll also get paid for it. Where's the difference?"

He opened his mouth, then closed it again, so hesitant to answer that … well. Shit. Yeah. She knew why. Her morals were fucked up. Always had been, she guessed, growing up like she had, and yet the realization left a bitter taste on her tongue, a thought she couldn't phrase flashing through her head.

This kid wasn't an aristocrats' son but he wasn't as damaged as she was either, not living between barrels and blades, faked passwords and dollar bills, hotel suites and planes, alcohol and drugs.

She swallowed.

"Don't tell," she said then, leaning back into her chair and drawing up a leg under her, filling her lungs with smoke again until she felt like suffocating. "I know." It exited through her nose and mouth when she spoke. "It's the morals." She lifted her shoulders carelessly, lazily. "Well, we can't all be good examples, can't we?" A biting smile pulled at her lips, hurting her, but the arrogance was easy to slip back in, familiar, and she nearly forgot about the implication, how she was saying more than she wanted to.

God. Fuck. Why couldn't she just, for once, think first and talk later?

She would have thought, she learned that at some point during the last decade or so, but here she was, spilling secrets buried so deep she hadn't even known about them to some kid she didn't even like – was actively trying not to like and not get liked in return. Sympathies made everything always so hard.

He … was still watching her and while it wasn't exactly freaking her out, it was strange, at the same time, in a way, because – she didn't know. She could tell that he was trying to figure out what was going on with her, what she was thinking, yeah, but she wasn't afraid that he was going to find something, since … shit, she had no idea and maybe that was the arrogance speaking and maybe that was bad, a wrong, thing, maybe she was underestimating him.

"Hey, if you're looking for advice on how to deal with killing people, look elsewhere," she snarled, not letting the silence get to her. It had been supposed to be an off-hand comment, a casual one, but it ended up being nothing like that.

"I ain't-"

She cut him off with a roll of her eyes. "Then why you're asking?" she retorted, not expecting an answer. "I'm not buying you're just curious in the things I do, because you probably couldn't care less."

Still studying him, she arched an eyebrow further, the gesture more of a habit than intention.

He didn't reply right away, which was coming as no surprise, because, whatever reasons he had, she was sure he wasn't actually going to tell her. He didn't have to and it wasn't like she was gonna … torture him or something – if he thought she would, that was alright, but she had better things to do than that. Well, not right now, but in general and she wasn't that much into hurting people, not if they hadn't done anything to deserve every pain that could be inflicted on someone without killing them.

The kid opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, seeming to think of something but deciding against it last second, starting again.

"You know you don't _have_ _to_ tell me, right?" she asked, sounding a bit too soft for her tastes, cigarette ashes staining her jeans and the carpet.

"You didn't have to tell me either," he retorted, cocking his eyebrow, and, fuck, yeah, she had been underestimating him. A little. It still sucked.

"Yeah, well, shit happens," she muttered, putting the cigarette to her lips again to stop herself from talking. She had said too much already and she regretted it, but there was nothing to be done about it now and worrying about it wouldn't help her either.

Darja started drumming her fingers against the arm rest again, her gaze focused on nothing in particular, her thoughts … not exactly existent. She didn't mind. There could have been worse.

How much time had passed anyway? It seemed like forever, but it couldn't be more than a couple of minutes, not enough, and it … she didn't know what it was making her – 'uneasy' came closest, she guessed.

Part of her wanted to reverse time and stop herself from ever starting to talk.

She pulled out her phone, glancing at the display. Nothing. Expected but not exactly delighting. Darja put the device away again.

There wasn't much left of her cigarette and, for a second, she contemplated lighting another one, so that the thoughts wouldn't get to her, although she probably shouldn't, health concerns and all. As a hitman, health was pretty important but, then again, Ylvi, Nik, and Elias had been smoking for as long as she could remember.

And it wasn't like she hadn't have a thousand options of stopping until now and yet she had never done it. She couldn't even remember why she had began in the first place, if she was honest.

She drew in another breath, slowly, trying to keep it in her lungs for a while before releasing it, like she had seen on the internet. It wasn't working.

"How old are you?" the kid asked then.

Darja gave him a brief glance, studying him. She shouldn't, she should just ignore him because whatever she was going to say, it wasn't going to improve the situation.

"Older than you," she replied, not even sure whether it was true. Maybe. Maybe not. She didn't care.

"How much older?"

She snorted, rolling her eyes at him, brushing off the topic with a wave of her hand. Hopefully, he wasn't going to keep asking. Really. Age was … she didn't want to talk about age. It wasn't that important anyway, didn't matter when you killed people. Nothing did, really, nothing ever truly mattered. Birth didn't matter, age didn't matter, past didn't matter, future didn't matter; it only mattered whether you accomplished your goals and whether your were happy – it was what Jack had told her and he had seemed ancient back then, a thousand years' wisdom inside of him. It had sounded like he had just shared the secret to life and … it hadn't been hard to imagine that he truly had.

"Too much," she added after a moment, hoping it would shut him up.

He was looking at her, skeptically, studying her with that nearly-frown on his face, seeming as if he was going to ask, as if he was going to say something. He didn't, in the end, but it didn't make her feel better.

Shit. Maybe she should … maybe she should really just go and never come back, never waste a second thought on this again and find another way – she had orders though. And things were never truly as easy as they appeared on first glance, and since this already appeared like shit, it had to be even more shit underneath and-

Maybe she should stop thinking about it, after all, she didn't have the magical power to just, miraculously, resolve any situation.

Hopefully, this was going to be over soon. Very, very soon.

* * *

His heart beat too fast. A bitter taste spread on his tongue.

It wasn't exactly unease, rather concern, since he hadn't anticipated seeing Roxy that way, so … somewhere between horrified and sick. Perhaps, it had to do with what she had found out about Darja.

Surely, he had assumed there were going to be gruesome information, details he didn't want to know. He had been very aware that she had killed people, brutally, that she had done much more than that, but he hadn't thought it would turn out to so bad. And as easily accessible as that, so, possibly, the reason for the shock on Roxy's face was a different one after all.

Silence settled in between them, briefly, heavily, a second too long.

The agent appeared as if she wanted to say something but couldn't, this fact worrying him more than he could currently express.

Her knuckles had turned white from holding the file she carried so tightly. It was a slim one, not appearing capable of holding such terrors, but matters rarely looked as bad as they were on first glance.

Merlin cleared his throat. "What did you find out?" he asked, carefully, quietly. He didn't want to stress her any more.

She raised her gaze, jaw set and shoulders straight. She was still swallowing a little too hard and her skin was still a little too pale, her eyes still a little too wide for him to think she was truly all right.

"Right," she said, slowly, looking at him with an expression that caused more concern to rise up inside of him. "I … have to inform you that Bors went undercover. He was in Moscow when I received his last transmission, saying he was being followed after sending me the documents he found." She nodded at the file.

His stomach dropped. First, agents didn't go undercover often, if at all. Second, he hadn't been there; if he had, he could have – he didn't know what he could have done, but he could have been there how he was supposed to. He got them in and he got them out. Usually.

Third, it meant that Darja was connected to someone powerful, influential, past the normal means.

He nodded, barely, pushing away the thought but it lingered, burned into his brain like acid – he had underestimated the danger. He had made a mistake. He had brought agents into danger. Most importantly: Darja wasn't _just_ a hitman.

"I'll make sure he'll return alive and well," Merlin promised, not knowing whether it was the kind he could keep.

"There is no guarantee these documents are even about her," Roxy said after a moment, hesitating before continuing. "It's nearly like she doesn't officially exist."

"I feared that much," he replied, his frown growing deeper as he looked at her.

Carefully, she extended her hand, holding the file towards him. Her fingers were shaking although she was trying her best to conceal it.

He took it.

"There is a birth certificate," she said then. "As well as a school certificate. And … photos." She pressed her lips together, suppressing … a gagging reflex, he was afraid. "Very, very graphic photos of a burn. Bors had to break into a hospital to receive them. After that …"

He could only nod. He wanted to say something positive instead, something to cheer her up. He lacked the words.

Cautiously, he opened the file.

The first page was, indeed, a copy of a Russian birth certificate. All names and data had been blacked out, except the child's name, Darja, and the year of birth, 1989.

It wasn't prove of anything, Roxy had been right about that. Merlin figured, there had been several girls born in the same year with the same name – if 'Darja' was her real name.

He turned the page. Next was the school certificate. Seventh grade. It had been issues in 2002, right before the summer holidays in June; last name and exact date of birth blacked out as well.

Glancing at the marks, he bit back a sigh. Nothing extra-ordinary about them.

"Apparently, certificates past this one don't exist," Roxy said. "Just earlier ones."

"What do you mean?" he questioned, already aware he wouldn't like the answer.

"As far as I reconstructed, the student failed to show up after the Christmas holidays," she answered, the breaths she drew in too flat. "But the child was never reported missing. No one seemed to care."

It sounded like one of these cases of mysterious disappearances that went unsolved for decades, if they were ever investigated to begin with.

He felt sick, his head coming up with too many scenarios, connecting missions he had worked on years ago to this.

Perhaps, he was wrong – it was a brief thought, barely held up by any logic. Children didn't just go missing and never turned up again without anyone ever looking for them. Not under normal circumstances.

Merlin had to think back to the phone call with her 'boss', considering what kind of man he had talked to. He wasn't sure, to be honest, it was hard telling something like this only by hearing someone's voice, especially if it was such an emotionless one.

"I see," he said, his throat dry, his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth.

"The photos are next," Roxy warned him, biting her lip.

He nodded, then taking in a deep breath to prepare himself, and turned the page.

Loose pictures. He picked up one.

It took him a moment to realize that he was seeing a human body – a part of it, at least. A leg.

The skin had turned black, peeling away, if there was anything left of it, revealing the flesh beneath – red and exposed, hanging there in pieces. Pus leaked from the wound, bright yellow and sickening. The bones had turned black too, possibly from sooth.

He had never seen a burn this severe, not even in all the years he had been at Kingsman.

Nausea rose in his throat. He tried swallowing it down as he picked up the next picture.

It didn't help.

They had cut away all the tissue that had been damaged beyond repair – half the leg. Muscles, nerves, blood vessels. Flesh. Even more skin. It had been sutured for the moment, yes, but considering how badly injured this person was, he thought it unlikely that there was anything to save; he would have opted for amputation.

The next photographs showed burns as well, much lighter ones, not going past the skin despite damaging some layers of it.

Surely, Doctor Clark had told him Darja's scar stemmed from a bad burn, meaning, there had been a lot of surgery to be done, not only the reconstructive kind. She had also noted, it was good work, one they couldn't replicate with their technology and discoveries.

Merlin hadn't assumed for even one moment it could have been that bad.

"These photos were in the same file as the birth certificate," Roxy told him.

There was a part of him that wanted to believe none of this had anything to do with the woman in his office – it seemed impossible for anyone with such an injury to ever walk again on their own two legs, let alone fight.

He swallowed twice to be sure he wasn't going to throw up. His stomach still twisted.

"Good work," he said with a tilt of his head, closing the file. He would rather not open it again. The pictures had already etched themselves into his brain either way, not leaving soon.

Roxy gave him a fleeting smile, the serious expression quickly returning to her face, hiding what was bothering her.

Merlin worried about her, about Eggsy – he wanted to be there for them, help them, be the kind of reasonable, more experienced friend they needed in a time like this, the kind of person they came to talk to, the kind of colleague who offered soothing and calming words during rough times, but he felt like he couldn't be any of that.

He hesitated for a moment longer.

"What's on your mind?" he asked then, his voice soft and quiet.

She looked at him, not replying right away. He understood her carefulness, he understood her caution, he understood the hesitation to speak the truth, and yet it left him with an unpleasant emotion since … he had wanted to be someone she and Eggsy could trust and he had failed that, it seemed.

"It's … about Darja," she said then, picking her words like she expected him to reject the topic right away. "I don't necessarily like her, but – do you think we can trust her?"

Merlin wasn't sure he knew what she mean. He figured, the constant need of turning every word, of reading into every so little gesture, of being mindful of everything, was straining, and, ultimately, getting to her. It was something he had neglected. He shouldn't have.

"I see," he said, swallowing, trying to think of an answer, of words to say that made sense. "I don't think she is exactly lying, but I do think she is hiding some things." It … wasn't an answer to her question, he knew, but it wasn't as easy as that. He wanted it to be, he wanted something to be easy for once, because he had lost a good friend barely a year ago and he didn't want to loose more.

"I'm sorry," he added. "I can't give you a clear yes or no."

She nodded at first, giving him an apologetic smile before shaking her head as if to say it was all right. He knew better than that.

Merlin kept looking for words, for something to say. He couldn't, he just couldn't, it wasn't working. The incapability made him doubt.

Briefly, silence stood too heavy between them.

"Let's go back inside," he said.

Roxy nodded, her expression growing serious again.

He turned around, walking back towards the door before opening it and motioning the agent to enter first. Only then he stepped inside himself, closing the door behind him.

There was the smell of cigarette smoke hanging in the air, sticking to the room, as the walked to his desk, sitting down behind it.

Roxy stopped next to Eggsy's chair.

He placed the file on the table, noticing Darja's gaze lingering on it a moment too long, nearly as if she knew what was inside.

"So," Eggsy said. "What now?"

Darja glanced at him, having arched her eyebrows, not saying anything – the latter surprised him.

Merlin looked at the younger agent, swallowing. That was another question he couldn't answer.

"It's easy enough," Darja said. She seemed distant, cold, like she was trying too hard to keep all of her emotions in check. He made a note to ask Eggsy about it the next time he got a chance.

"How so?" Merlin questioned when she didn't continue – perhaps, it was what she wanted him to do, or perhaps it was … something else; he was starting to see her differently and he couldn't tell whether he was making a mistake in doing so.

"It's just finding the mole and taking care of the issue," she replied. The twitching of her lips he expected didn't come. "Whatever that means." To her, it certainly meant killing.

"And if it's not as easy as that?" he asked, noticing his two agents watching her, then him, a little too close, a little too tense. They seemed to be waiting for something – a reaction, an answer.

"Well, then it's not," she said with a careless shrug of her shoulders. "Nothing's ever truly easy, so if things turn out to be different, they just get dealt with."

"And if it doesn't work?" Eggsy cut in, studying her.

"That's an issue for later," Darja replied, leaning back, her gaze still focused on the agent as she drummed her fingers against the arm rest of their chair.

Merlin frowned, studying her closer for a moment. There was something that made him stop and consider – it was an ignorant approach, even for her; she was too smart for suggesting something like that. She had to be aware of the consequences, of how everything was intervened, of how one couldn't ignore everything else.

She knew. He was sure, and yet … there was something else to her.

"It's an option," he said, slowly. Darja noticed it, noticed he wasn't agreeing with her – it was in the way she arched her eyebrows, in her eyes, in the way she looked at him, in the way she seemed to brace herself. "But it also is an ignorant approach."

She snorted, rolling her eyes like it didn't matter after all.

"We do not have the luxury of ignoring everything else," he went on.

"You," she corrected him, coolly. "You don't. You have to completely sure." Since she wasn't including herself, she thought she had other options, other possibilities – he didn't think she had.

"Don't you have to be?" he asked in return.

The tension had grown so strong, he could nearly physically feel it pressing against his chest.

He didn't understand it, neither he understood Darja. He had assumed he had, moments ago, but then she was so different – and, he assumed, he knew why. This right now, this cold and this anger, this opposing him just because: it wasn't her. It was who she pretended to be, perhaps, who she wanted to be.

"No," she replied, hesitating, covering it up with a tilt of her head. "My life's the only one I've got to worry about."

For a second, he thought he had misheard her. Her voice had been quiet, maybe a bit too quiet, and it was nothing he had imagined her saying without a cruel twitch of her lips, without taking satisfaction in revealing a matter as major as this; she wasn't doing it for the sake of it. She was doing it to deflect attention from herself.

Surely, Roxy and Eggsy had known that he had to consider the dangers to their lives too. But the way Darja had said it made it sound different, like he was purposefully going out of his way to make sure they would be safe.

She wasn't wrong about that.

He stumbled for words.

"Do you ever do something else than complain?" Eggsy cut in, his gaze fixed on the hitman.

"If there is something else to do, yes," she retorted without missing a heartbeat. "But it isn't looking like there's anything, is it?" Her tone was sharp, icy, her accent rougher – her expression was hard now, cold, stern.

"Easy," Merlin said, hoping to stop the situation from escalating.

"I'm not taking it easy," Darja hissed. "I'm sick of doing nothing. I'm sick of having nothing to work with. All you do is talk and talk and nothing's coming out of it."

"You're wrong," he argued. "Sometimes, it simply takes time. Plans do at least."

"Plans don't help when there's nothing to plan in the first place," she retorted.

It wasn't like he didn't understand her, but he couldn't agree with her either.

Slowly, he drew in a breath, letting it out again as he looked at her. The expression in her eyes was still too hard. She wouldn't give in, he was sure. It reminded him of desperation. She wouldn't admit it if he asked.

"There is something," he said then.

"You know what I mean," she muttered in return, briefly glaring at him. She leaned forward a couple of inches, her elbows balanced on her knees. There was something intense in it, something he hadn't seen before. It made him uneasy. "How many people work for you again? I'm sure there won't be _any_ difficulty to find one mole, right? And there surely won't be _any_ issue planning all the possibilities, right?" There was an edge to her voice, a sharp tone, anger, and yet, she wasn't accusing him, she didn't seem to be angry at him, them.

"I didn't say it would be easy," he replied, frowning. He had an idea what she was trying to say, however-

She gritted her teeth, the line of her jaw too harsh and too hard. She swallowed the words she had wanted to say, kept them to herself. It looked as if she was trying to bite off her tongue, preferring that over answering. It … wasn't unlikely, considering how proud she was, but this was a mask she was wearing and there were numerous things buried beneath. It wasn't his place to un-bury them.

He blinked.

She broke eye contact, her gaze on the pocket of her sweater for a second.

"I've got to make a call," she said, rising to her feet, the excuse sounding as bad as it was.

She didn't exactly slam the door when she left the room.

It was only then he realized a couple of things, one of them more unsettling than the one before.

Merlin swallowed, the silence suddenly crushing him.

But since giving up wasn't an option, he simply took a deep breath and sorted through his thoughts before he looked at his two agents.

They studied him, questions he couldn't phrase bothering them.

"I am sorry," he said, not knowing what he was sorry for.

"There's no reason to apologize," Roxy told him after a moment, softly, but her face expressed more worry than he could bear.

"Yeah," Eggsy agreed with a small nod.

He still felt like he had to, over and over again, until he was sure he hadn't failed his job.

"Thank you," he said instead, tilting his head respectfully.

There was a moment of quiet, a moment of hesitation for him.

"I'll be right back," he said then, slowly getting up.

Eggsy and Roxy gave him a brief nod when he left the room.

* * *

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck. _Fuck_.

She could keep cursing forever and it wouldn't change a thing – she wished it would.

It was just … fuck. Everything was a big, goddamned clusterfuck. She was.

There was a tremble in her fingers, not easing with the cigarette, no matter how much smoke she inhaled. Maybe she needed alcohol, maybe she needed drugs, maybe she needed a distraction – just … something, anything, because she didn't know what to do and that was a feeling she hated with every cell of her body.

There was just – there was just _nothing_ , plainly nothing, and … shit. Shit, yeah, it was scaring her, it was scaring her really badly, because she had always been scared of being power- and helpless and it pretty much looked like she was right now.

And there was another thing she was scared of: people. Of … shit, she didn't know; she was too deep in this mess already, there was no point denying it, but she had never put it into words before, not consciously, not voluntarily. There was only going down now, since she couldn't keep pretending that she hated everyone and everything forever; there was no use running, there was no way of hiding.

Darja didn't remember the last time neither of that had worked – well, no, she remembered, but she didn't mean-

Shit, she didn't mean _that_ , but her hands were trembling so bad, she was going to drop her cigarette, she couldn't breathe, her mind-

She gritted her teeth until her jaw hurt, until she tasted blood, until she felt like she was going to break out her own teeth, before she took another drag, holding her phone tighter with her other hand.

The display stayed dark. She couldn't say what she had expected. Maybe she had hoped Jack would fix her problems for her, would provide her with a solution to everything, would … do the same he had done years ago.

He wasn't going to call her back. He wasn't. She might as well bury her hope and her self-esteem when she was at it. Wishing didn't change anything, praying didn't, so she didn't even try.

Still, … she was angry, angry at herself, because she used to be better at this, she used to be better at her fucking job, she used to be better at not getting breakdowns when all she was supposed to do was stay calm and do whatever she had to.

She closed her eyes, then opened them again.

Things were still fucked up. They hadn't miraculously gotten better.

Well, shit. Yeah. That was what it was. It wasn't like she didn't know, it was just … she didn't actually know, didn't want to know – she never had been good at admitting, at dealing with stuff, especially not if it involved feelings, but her feelings had always been a mess, her instincts a bit too fast and careless when it came to trusting people. Years of training hadn't changed that.

She sucked in a deep breath through aching teeth, the iced air stinging in her lungs. She should be getting up from the top of the stone wall if she didn't want to catch a cold, but the trees and long stretches of field were creepy, too wide and too empty, so she'd rather not face them.

Darja put her cigarette to her lips again, inhaling the smoke deep enough to fill all of her lungs with it. It still wasn't calming her.

Her feet dangled in the air, kind of useless. Her hands were useless too, about to freeze solid. The cold kept creeping through her jeans and trainers, through her pullover and jacket, eating through her skin. It wasn't as bad as heat.

She exhaled, ignoring the steps, the smoke curling through her nose and mouth.

It were Merlin's, she could tell … for some reason,.

He stopped. His shoes were in her field of vision. She still pretended not to notice him.

"Go away," she said after a while where he just stood there. It was more of a mutter though, more … she didn't sound like she had intended to.

"I'm afraid I can't," he replied.

She huffed in return, leaning back, balancing her weight on one hand, meeting his gaze with a glare.

"Because it's so hard to pretend everything's alright," she retorted sarcastically, sounding too rough. It was better than her voice giving in though.

He looked at her for a moment, his expression not changing. She hated how she couldn't do that.

"It is, if nothings is all right," he answered.

"You're still doing pretty well at it," she answered, arching an eyebrow at him.

There was tension in his shoulders giving him away, there were shadows so deep she was sure they were going to swallow him, there was … no, he didn't look like everything was alright, but it wasn't obvious either; you had to know what to look for.

"I suppose," he said with a sigh like he wasn't proud of it.

She didn't understand. Well … okay, she did, kinda, because he surely hadn't been exactly pressured by life or death situations to develop this skill, didn't exactly have the same need she had – she didn't even know why she needed to hide every emotion, it just had always seemed … right, it had seemed like the thing she was supposed to do because everyone else did it.

"You know," she said then. "You can just say when you're sick of me and I'll be going. No need for fancy words." She swallowed the other things of top of her tongue, the things she had already said but wanted to say again – she didn't want to be here, she wanted to do something, she had no real interest in actually working with any of them.

He looked at for with one of these frowns that were a little too deep, studying her again for a second. Then … then there was a small twitch in his lips, barely moving the corners of his mouth.

What the fuck.

"Do you really think I haven't worked with people who are much worse than you?" he asked.

"I hoped," she said, regretting it the moment she had said it, dropping her gaze to her feet again.

She sounded different, she knew, and she knew he noticed it – but she didn't know how to feel about it. There was more to it than two words, yes, and she didn't want him to figure it out, but he was smart, too smart.

At first, there was silence. And she was glad about it although she was probably going to over-think, although she was going to lose herself in scenarios, although she was only going to feel terrible.

Merlin shifted his weight to one leg, slowly, carefully.

She tensed anyway, not really knowing why (but she knew, she always knew).

He took a step to the side, standing next to her then, more than an arm's length away, before he leaned against the wall.

"Why do you want to be disliked so badly?" he questioned.

She looked up, finding his gaze on her. She took a long drag so she didn't have to answer right away.

"I'm a hitman," she said like it mean anything.

"You think it makes it easier," he concluded and it should be scaring her, because he was a stranger, a clever stranger who already knew too much about her anyway, but it didn't – that was scaring her.

"I like to think that, yes," she muttered, the smoke leaving through her nose and lips. "It's an excuse – no, it's a reason not to get attached."

She finished her cigarette, stubbing it out on the stone next to her. "I still get attached too easily," she added, quietly, hoping he didn't hear her, but she shouldn't have spoken then.

"And-" She cut herself off before she could make another mistake. There was no use in bearing all of this to a man she didn't know – to anyone, really. She hadn't told Elias, she hadn't told Nik and she sure as hell hadn't told Ylvi. It wasn't that much different with Merlin.

"You're scared," he said, all serious and stern, but the expression on his face wasn't hard, neither was his voice. It was giving her a funny feeling in her stomach. Like she was going to throw up.

"You're also scared," she retorted. It had only been a hunch until now, a feeling but she knew it was true the moment she said it, because he seemed older, more tired, because he wasn't trying to deny it.

He just stood next to her. It wasn't so bad.

The air still stung on her lungs, she was still freezing, she still felt horrible.

"What's the lesson of that?" she asked, not looking at him at first, then slowly turning her head. "Does that make us two people who're very much afraid but don't actually want to admit that because they think it's bad? Or does that make us two stoic people who should know better than that?" It was strange to speak of 'we'.

"Perhaps," he said, looking right past her before his gaze focused on her. She hadn't noticed how brown his eyes were, pale in the gray light, a little darker than normally; she wondered how hers looked to him. (Not that it mattered; that was, what she was telling herself.)

"Perhaps?" she asked, arching her eyebrows.

"Perhaps," he repeated. "Neither of us are who we want to be. And, perhaps, that makes us more similar than we would like."

Her mouth was dry. She wanted to think of a witty comeback, something, anything, but she couldn't, because … well, shit, he was right, obviously. Her first instinct still was to deny it and pretend it wasn't true.

"Maybe," she said with a lame shrug, nothing of it covering it up well enough. "Does that mean you're more honest than you usually are?"

"Yes," he said after a tense moment, letting go of a breath held too long. "I don't want to be."

"Neither do I, but here we are," she said, running a hand through her hair.

There was silence, where they looked at each other, watching each other, and she nearly expected it all too feel uncomfortable, uneasy. It didn't.

"I could use your help," he said, making her arch her eyebrows at him again.

"You've got a hint," she pointed out. "You're smart. You've got people you can trust and who trust you in return."

"Yes," he said with a nod. "But it's not more difficult than that."

"Nothing's ever easy, I guess?" she suggested with a sigh that took the tension she had been storing in her body with it when she let it out.

"I'm afraid so," he replied, another, this time sympathetic, twitch in his lips accompanying his words.

She hesitated. "So … you mean it?" It was a stupid question because he wouldn't ask if he didn't, but … it was hard to imagine anyone would ask her to stay.

"Yes," he said. "You could use something to do, if I'm not mistaken. And I could use the help."

It was different than it had been a couple of days ago. She was free to say no and go, in a way, and it wasn't so bad, in a way, she guessed, though there was guilt eating her now, gnawing at her.

"Alright," she said, feeling a twitch in her own lips. It hurt.

Merlin nodded.

There was something making her breath a little easier, a little better.

She pushed herself from the stone a moment later, slowly sliding down, standing next to him for another moment of silence that was too long.

It was alright. Kinda.


	11. Chapter 11: Changes

Eggsy and Roxy appeared relieved when he re-entered his office, quickly hiding that emotion though.

It didn't exactly hurt, but there was still a short pain behind his ribs, inside his skull, a thought crossing his mind – this might was the most dangerous situation they had ever been in. Last year had been dangerous as well, surely, and none of them had known whether they would survive and save the world. Back then, he had trusted every single person who worked for the service. If he did that now, it could be the downfall of everything he had worked so hard to protect.

Merlin quietly closed the door behind him, looking for words to say, not finding them. The truths the conversation with Darja had left him with made his tongue heavy.

Eggsy straightened his position, the rustle of his suit not quite breaking the silence.

Roxy studied him. The concern was still present on her face.

"You can take a break," Merlin said then. He had considered it for a couple of moments, twisting the letters back and forth, trying coming up with something else. He hadn't.

There was a matter he had to be sure about before focusing on the task at hand. It was a foolish thing to do, he was very much aware, because, he knew, when he asked Darja if these files were about her, she wouldn't answer. She wouldn't tell him what truly had happened, she wouldn't tell him how she got her scar, she perhaps wouldn't even tell him whether his theories were right. He wouldn't blame her.

The two agents looked at him in confusion, blinking, not seeming to understand.

"Are you sure?" Eggsy asked, a small frown appearing on his face. "Everything all right?"

It was a question he should be asking them since they hadn't been agents for as long as he had. They hadn't experienced situations like these – he didn't either, but he had dealt with similar before. It helped.

"Yes," Merlin answered with a small nod, too surprised to have replied right away. "I am all right." He wasn't though, not really; he was okay, he could handle it.

They didn't fully believe him, and he wished there was something he could say to convince them. Usually, he was good with words, knew how to use them, which to use when, but whenever it came to personal things, he stumbled and forgot all about it.

During the years, that had been enough reason to swallow it down and not view many situations as personal, if any. Now … it wasn't working any more.

"There is simply something else I need to clarify first," he said, offering the explanation as some sort of comfort.

Roxy seemed to understand. And she didn't seem to like it.

Eggsy studied him again, sceptically this time.

There was a brief moment of silence where he thought he had to say something but he didn't know what. It wasn't like he didn't want to divulge any other information, no, it was just … there was guilt eating him, guilt towards these two agents. He was afraid of neglecting them, of not paying as much attention to them and their worries and struggles as he should, of not doing enough for them.

Then their expressions softened, just a little, enough to miss it if he hadn't been looking for it, the gesture accompanied by a nod.

Yet, they remained silent when he went over to his desk to receive the file. There were glances though, questioning ones, exchanged between the two of them.

He left the room, pulling the door shut behind him, letting out a breath he had kept for too long. Merlin studied the brown cover, swallowed, before setting into motion again and walking through the building, towards the room where Darja was staying.

He knocked, waiting.

"Yeah," she just said, her voice muffled through the door.

Briefly, he hesitated, then pressing down the handle and stepping inside, closing the door behind him.

He had been expecting to find her on the bed. She was on a table instead, leaning against the wall, her legs crossed, watching him.

He stopped mid-breath.

Nothing about it should surprise as much as it did.

She didn't look different. There still were the hard lines to her jaw and mouth, her cheekbones still seemed too high and sharp, her eyes had the same intensity that had made him uneasy before. It didn't now.

Hesitation clung to him.

He swallowed again, taking a step into the room and then another, stopping next to the table, mindful of leaving at least an arm's distance between them. Carefully, he put the file on the table like it could crack under the weight of ink on paper.

Darja eyed it for a second. When she shifted her attention to him, she arched an eyebrow.

"You said there was something you had to ask," she noted.

"Yes," he replied with a small tilt of his head, inclining it to a nod. "It has to do with this file."

"I'm going to take a wild guess and say it's personal," she answered after a short moment. "It's about me."

"Yes," he confirmed, wondering where she knew, but, then again, she was intelligent. She had probably figured it out.

She sighed. It was a heavy one, dropping her shoulders an inch, barely easing the tension in her.

Darja pulled the file towards her, picking it up and opening it, then flipping through the copies and photographs without any change of expression.

"You know I can't tell you the truth, right," she remarked casually, studying one of the pictures closer than he had looked at all of them combined.

"I do," he answered.

"Then what are you hoping to achieve?" she asked, looking at him as she closed the file and put it down next to her.

The question sent him stumbling for an answer, the words stuck in his throat, his brain suddenly empty of any thought. Her reaction surprised him, her carelessness surprised him, her casualness surprised him – it had been tearing him apart and making him sick, worrying him.

Merlin took a chair and sat down. "I wanted to be sure about something," he said.

She arched her eyebrows, crossing her arms. "About what?" she questioned.

"I know you're not going to tell me what happened," he stated, slowly. "But I couldn't help but wonder what happened to that girl." He nodded in the direction of the file. "Whether-"

"You're thinking about human trafficking and brainwashing," she cut in, plainly, flatly, no trace of anything in her voice.

"Yes," he said although his confirmation wasn't needed. "I wondered if that is what happened to you." His words felt like shots, the silence after them deafening.

Darja was looking at him, something in her eyes he hadn't seen before, lips half parted as if she had wanted to speak but forgot about it.

"It didn't," she said after a second, shaking her head, sounding rougher, hoarser. "It didn't happen." She didn't elaborate. He didn't ask her to.

There was another moment of silence, more difficult to bear.

"Have you been wondering why I'm a hitman?" she asked, twisting the fabric of her sweater back and forth between her fingers.

"No," he answered. "I didn't. Have you?"

"No," she said. "I know why. It's not like I have regrets." There was a shrug, ike she didn't care about that either but Merlin was sure there was more about it than she let on. She wouldn't have asked if it wasn't important to her.

More silence, this time making the air so heavy it was gradually crushing him.

He didn't know what to say, didn't know if there was anything to say at all – he felt like there was, something, anything, but he had no idea where to start and he didn't know whether the things he was going to say were appropriate.

"Well," she said then with a tilt of her head, studying him again. She stopped herself, cutting herself off.

Merlin watched her for a moment longer, waiting. She didn't continue. And … he was hesitant to ask because he didn't want to make her uneasy and he didn't want to stir up things he shouldn't.

"What is it?" he asked, quietly, keeping his voice levelled, because … he didn't know. Darja wasn't the kind of person to be scared so easily, he supposed, but she was so genuine now, not hiding behind a mask, that he feared he would end up scaring her. It was a stupid thought, he was sure, but being true made him feel vulnerable and he imagined, it did the same to her.

"I wondered something," she said, brushing a few lazy curls behind her ear. They didn't stay there. "Why do you care so much about what happening to a child over a decade ago?" There was another question hidden in there, a 'Why do you care so much about what could have happened to me?', and he had no answers.

He wasn't an empathic man, had never really been. He couldn't be. Being overly empathic would make him incapable of doing his job.

It wasn't sympathy what he felt for Darja either; it had more similarities with how he worried about the well-being of his agents. But she wasn't one of his agents. She was … someone he barely knew, someone he partly understood, someone who wasn't who they pretended to be. She was neither enemy nor ally and he didn't have a word for it.

"I had to think of missions I worked," he answered. It was the truth, part of it certainly. It still sounded like an excuse. "Children were being kidnapped and brainwashed into doing whatever their captors wanted."

"And you thought, my boss is that kind of person?" she questioned, an amused twitch to her lips – Merlin wouldn't call it that, but he had figured, her sense of humour was differing quite a lot from his.

"I considered it," he said, not sure why he sounded like he was defending himself. Maybe he was. Maybe she wasn't accusing him of anything.

She leaned back, the smile fading from her lips.

"What would you have done if I hadn't denied it?" she asked. "Or if you didn't believe me?" She paused. "Because … you do. You believe me. And you don't really have a reason to."

"I don't know," he admitted. Perhaps, he wouldn't have done anything. Perhaps, there would have been nothing to do. Perhaps … he didn't know. He was Merlin. He had duties and responsibilities, he had people to look out for; Darja wasn't one of them. Yet, here he was.

She nodded briefly, then fixing her gaze on a point over his shoulder.

It felt like there was more to say, like there were so many matters unspoken that needed to be talked about. He didn't know if he could. They were … personal, so to say, linked to emotions and thus inappropriate.

The silence was heavy with many of them, words and sentences, neither fully phrased or formed, just hanging there unfinished, barely existing outside of his mind – he couldn't breathe easily inside of them. They suffocated him.

Still, he took a deep breath, looking up. He met Darja's gaze, both of them lingering in the moment a second too long, hesitant to speak; it was too easy to say the wrong thing now, too easy to grab words from the air around them and make them real.

Neither of them did.

He cleared his throat. "Let's go back," he said.

She nodded, slowly uncrossing her legs and sliding from the table.

They shared another glance before they left.


	12. Chapter 12: Raleigh

He had never expected it would end up being that entertaining to watch them; in fact, he had anticipated nothing fun to come out of it at first, since he had thought, there were more important tasks for him to do. Now, he was coming to understand that he had been wrong. Who else but him – aside from his superior, of course – would notice if anything went off track?

And there was something amusing watching people struggle, none of them having a chance to figure out this masterpiece of a plan they were caught up in. There was some satisfaction in it, he had to admit that, there was satisfaction in watching them get closer and closer to the inevitable doom, to the point of no return from where everything would finally fall apart, including Kingsman.

He bit back the smile threatening to spill over his lips. There was no one here to see it but him, there was no actual reason to hide it except that it was too soon to celebrate. He had been told as much, more than once, on more than one occasion.

He took a sip of the whiskey, setting the glass down on the table in front of him.

He had never been sadistic, and this wasn't sadism either, after all, no one was suffering. Yet, but they'd all hurt themselves.

It had all started with Arthur anyway, with a choice he hadn't seen coming. Only thinking about it had a bitter taste to it, something hard to swallow.

Arthur had chosen, out of all trainees, a girl. A _girl_.

That old man had been out of his mind.

It seemed, Merlin was too; apparently, it was a disease sticking to leadership in this organisation. One more reason to get rid of the service and raise a new one.

Sighing, he leaned back in his seat, closing his eyes, glancing at the time. He was to wait for the hitman his superior had hired, even if that person was late by several hours. Now, _that_ was a boring task, because he was already stuck here for two hours and had run out of things to do an hour ago. Then, he had decided to watch some of the feed being transmitted to his laptop due to a little trick, something he had smuggled into the Kingsman system when Merlin had been busy. It was disappointing he still hadn't noticed.

He let out a sigh, not yet closing the laptop or the feed.

There always had been waiting, yes, and when he had been younger, it hadn't been as much of an issue. It had been for the mission, for the greater good, for the service. Now, it was for a goal he couldn't await reaching, although there was no possibility of speeding up the process of it.

With another sigh, he emptied his glass before reaching for the bottle to fill it again, proceeding to lean back in his chair.

The room was a small one, though big enough for a desk and chairs. After all, professional appearance meant a lot, even if it was just for a meeting with a hitman.

Time was only ticking by slowly, sluggish, seeming to take twice the usual amount. Perhaps, because he was waiting for a reasonable amount to pass so he could get up and leave.

Maybe that was the reason he was only a subordinate for now; maybe it was a skill he had yet to learn and this was his opportunity – so it had been him who had been tasked with this conversation, this negotiation. He had been trusted, entrusted.

It took another hour until there was a knock on the door.

He closed his laptop the very same second, ready to get up – a reflex he had recently developed. Then he calmed himself. If it was the hitman he was expecting, he could surely bear to wait for a few moments longer.

First, he took a deep breath, then standing up and straightening his suit. Appearance was important. He was in control here.

He crossed the room, the silence interrupted by another, clearly impatient knock that made him wait for another moment before he pressed down the handle and opened the door.

The man facing him was as tall as he was himself. He had brown hair and dark eyes though, glaring at him from the shadows. He was holding himself out of the light coming from the hallway, out of a direct line of fire, no matter from where someone was deciding to shoot.

As far, as intelligent.

"You going to let me in or not?" the hitman asked, a faint accent carrying over. "If you wanna figure out the details of a contract in a hallway, that's gonna be your issue."

There was an edge in his voice, but he would have considered him dangerous either way. This person wasn't to be underestimate, but, of course, he'd never made such a mistake.

He swallowed the words he wanted to say and stepped inside, motioning the man to enter, glad about carrying his weapons beneath his suit. The hitman hadn't come unprepared.

Having made sure the door was shut, he walked back to his desk.

Apparently, the other one preferred standing.

He crossed his arms behind his back, returning the gaze much more reserved, much more levelled, waiting for the next step.

"Very well," he said then with a sigh, giving in first, despite not wanting to.

There was another glare thrown his way like he had personally insulted him.

"Get to the deal you wanted to discuss," the man said, not missing nearly snapping at him.

Gritting his teeth, he took the file out of the drawer, handing it to the man across from him. The desk was the only thing separating them and in case of a fight, he was sure it wouldn't do much to protect him.

The hitman frowned and glanced at him sceptically, then opened the file to flip through it.

"You know you'll have to pay me extra, right?" he asked, briefly looking at him before returning his attention to the papers. "Last time I got involved with Russians, I nearly coughed up a handful of their bullets."

There was a comment about carelessness and skill on the tip of his tongue. He swallowed it.

"I'm sure the adjustments to your payment can be made," he said instead.

The man nodded, now dropping to the chair. "Now, tell me about the details," he said, sounding professional all of a sudden.

Greedy bastard.


	13. Chapter 13: Discomfort

This was … unusual. Kinda. In a way.

Slowly, she drew in a breath, holding it for a moment before letting it out. Even the air seemed different and – and she didn't know, she wasn't out of her mind and she wasn't out of her wits, she was just a little out of her comfort zone.

It wasn't the first time she was feeling uneasy in her own skin, it wasn't the first time she was uncomfortable, but … there was Merlin; she had never been good with people.

It wasn't panic yet but she had yet to interact with more people, she had yet to say something, and she was so sure she was going to fall back into old habits.

Darja drew in another breath and then another, keeping it in her lungs before releasing it, trying to calm herself, steady herself, ground herself. The air kept getting stuck halfway and … she didn't know. She didn't have the words for it. She didn't know where to start. She didn't know where to stop.

She wasn't really thinking and at the same time she felt like she was already overthinking – in her head, it was all pure confusion, it all didn't make sense, she didn't know anything.

It was starting to drive her crazy, piece by piece, she was pushing herself further and further towards another panic attack and she hated it. She hated feeling young and stupid, like she had never grown out of it.

Alright. Alright. If she really thought everything was so bad, she wouldn't be doing any of this. After all, she had done that before, taken a step back, said no, and left. (That had never ended too well, but that was because she didn't know how to cope and … that was an entirely different story.)

Merlin glanced at her, briefly, then studying her like there was something he wanted to say. He didn't, not right away, turned away instead and they continued in silence.

When he looked at her again, she caught his gaze, the two of them sharing another one of these moments where she forgot to breathe and couldn't phrase a single thought.

"How are you?" he asked in a voice that made her think he already knew.

She shrugged, drawing up her shoulders and dropping them again with a small sigh, the truth sitting on her tongue too easily.

He studied her, she looked away.

The hallways were still the same, she couldn't tell them apart even if she tried. And she did, a little, not much, because it wasn't about escaping anymore.

Biting her tongue, she stopped herself from checking her phone again, then considering smoking for a second, but that wouldn't help her either, so she didn't do it. There was nothing that could give her the peace she was looking for because she was afraid of being herself, of being vulnerable – she had been once. It had scarred her pretty bad.

The pair of doors they were approaching looked familiar, so she figured they lead to his office where the two kids were surely waiting.

Merlin slowed down, hesitating a moment too long like he was going to turn around and say something, ask something, tell her something. Instead, he opened the doors slowly, entering first. She followed him, hoping to … kinda vanish, to not draw too much attention since she didn't know how much she could handle.

When she raised her gaze, she discovered that the room was empty. It didn't really make the situation any better or worse.

The silence returned, heavy, too big to fit into here, crushing her. Part of her wanted to express all the feelings boiling up inside of her, but she didn't have words for them, neither in English or in Russian or in any other language she knew, so she swallowed them down, pushed them out of her mind until she could form a coherent thought again.

She sat down in one of the arm chairs close to the door, drawing up one leg under her. Merlin took the other one.

The physical distance was … nice. Welcomed. Maybe she needed it to start it all out, to learn to be herself again or something – she had never forgotten it, she had just pretended to be someone else.

She stopped biting her tongue when the copper taste of blood filled her mouth.

"So, what's this about?" she asked, catching his gaze.

"What do you mean?" he asked with one of those frowns on his face, his voice a little softer than before, she thought – it send her heart racing.

"I mean-" She caught herself, not really knowing what she was supposed to say. Well, yeah, she knew what she meant, but … she didn't know, she had just stopped and her head was so empty, and the more time passed, the more awkward everything got, and, shit, she was doing it again, she was already thinking too much again.

"I mean … what are you planning on doing now?" she asked but the words didn't seem right, didn't seem to fit – they were slipping her and she was too self-conscious about her Russian to use it.

"I thought," he said. "That, as a next step, we should re-consider how to approach the situation.

She nodded. It sounded logical enough.

Briefly, she thought about asking something else. She didn't. She didn't want to appear impatient and she didn't want to give him any wrong impressions – Darja had no idea why she was worrying so much about what he was thinking of her. In the end, it didn't matter. It shouldn't. But things were never as they were supposed to be, eh?

She dropped her gaze to her hands in her lap, forcing them to stay still this time. She wasn't nervous, so she didn't want to appear that way, yet she needed something to do when her thoughts were running wild.

There was a noise, steps, the door opened. She felt bad for the relief.

Two people entered. It had to be the two other agents since she didn't think Merlin would be as calm as he was when had been someone else.

For a moment, she wondered why she was trusting him so much, why she was relying so much on the reaction he showed – it wasn't surprising that she could read him, she could read a lot of people like an open book, but … still.

She didn't look up, only briefly glanced at them when they sat down on the couch opposite from them.

"I suggest," Merlin said, his voice heavy enough that she didn't know how he was capable of speaking at all. "That we deal with this mole quickly." He sounded different now, more formal, like he was trying to be all professional again as if it would help with anything.

She kept these words to herself, swallowing them down until they were hot in her stomach, threatening to come back up – she wanted to tell him there was no use pretending he had everything under control. Maybe her reason was selfish; maybe she wanted to tell him since she felt uneasy when he was keeping his mask around other people but she wasn't – perhaps it was different, perhaps these two kids were really important to him and he didn't want them to see him fall apart.

The bitter taste in her mouth stayed either way.

The boy and the girl nodded slowly at his words, waiting for what was to come next. They were disturbed by the thought of someone betraying them, she could see it in their eyes and the way they tensed.

Darja didn't know anything about betrayal like that.

"Meaning," Merlin went on. "We have to figure out the motive."

"You know that boils down to being speculations, right?" she asked.

Why did a motive matter so much anyway? Where was the difference between a guy stealing millions of dollars from people trusting him because he was a greedy bastard and a guy who went on a murder spree because it was fun? She didn't see it but neither she had killed someone who hadn't deserved it.

Merlin looked at her, thinking longer about a reply than he usually did. "I do," he said.

The kids blinked in surprise, exchanging a short glance.

It had come just as unexpected to her – maybe she had been wrong about him, maybe he hadn't pretended at all, maybe he was genuinely trying to keep everything together.

There was a question she should be asking now, she should be asking why he had suggested it then, but she didn't, not right away, because … she could see he didn't like the topic. Because he seemed to have an idea. Because he seemed to fear for something to be revealed.

She knew that feeling, that was why she hesitated to begin with; there were other people now, she didn't know his boundaries and she didn't want to overstep them. He wasn't overstepping hers, it was only fair to return that favor.

"I don't think it's such a bad idea," the boy said into the silence, trying to be casual about it. He wasn't; it was obvious he had noticed something was off but he avoided addressing it.

"I mean," he quickly went on, his accent coming through stronger when all the attention shifted to him. Darja felt a pinch of sympathy. "Nobody just wakes up one day and thinks, yeah, let's kill some people."

Darja put one elbow on the arm rest of the chair, leaning her head on it as she looked at him, running through every word she knew in search of the ones that didn't sound that aggressive.

"There's gotta be some core motivation, right?" the boy went on as if he had sensed her hesitation.

"Some people's core motivation is spite," she remarked, drawing up her eyebrows in question while keeping her voice leveled.

"What I mean is," she went on with a small sigh, shifting her weight and sitting up in the chair. "People do things out of the pettiest motivations, so I don't know if there's any use in trying."

The kid blinked, once, twice, looking at her, studying her, like … she had just told him the earth was flat or some shit. There was surely surprise about it, that much she could tell, and she didn't know how to feel about it – was she that different? Did she sound that different?

Did it matter what they thought of her?

Darja had no idea who she was lying to here; it had always mattered what people thought of her, maybe too much, and although all of this was supposed to be temporary, temporary was beginning to look like a long time.

"I think, what he's trying to say is that, if we manage finding out why someone would do that, it would be easier figuring out the rest," the girl cut in, quietly, calmly, still choosing her words but not as carefully as she had before.

She wasn't wrong but Darja had never cared about reasons, so she failed seeing why it was so important to everyone, after all … it didn't matter why you did something. If you murdered someone out of love, it was still fucking murderer.

Maybe it was different for people who hadn't grown up around hitmen, maybe it was different for people who had lived a pretty normal life. Maybe. Probably.

There was a brief moment of silence where she didn't know what to say, where none of them knew … she guessed, she couldn't know for sure. The important thing was that no one talked and that the silence was making her uneasy because it got her thinking and thinking was bad.

"Where do we start then?" she asked after another moment before it got too much, drumming her fingers against the arm rest of her chair.

"Well, what could make someone want to kill an entire organisation?" the boy wondered.

That … wasn't really true – she avoided looking at Merlin since it wasn't her place to say anything about it.

He cleared his throat as if he wanted to say something. He didn't, he just kinda stopped once they looked at him, the words stuck in his throat.

When she turned her head in his direction, she could see the traces of horror lining the shadows on his face.

"Merlin, you all right?" the boy asked, sitting up and tensing, but she barely glanced at him.

He hesitated to answer, seeming like he couldn't, like the shock was still sitting so deep, the image she had summed with a few simple words etched into his brain like some kind of nightmares, some kind of very, very bad nightmare.

"It was not only about destroying Kingsman," he said then, carefully, too quietly, and … Darja felt bad for ever mentioning it, because it was, in a way, her fault he was so horrible – she had no idea where that empathy was coming from, but he wasn't half bad and … It was just a feeling and she had never been good at doing anything about them.

There was worry now, she could nearly feel it, but she wasn't looking at the two kids. She felt like they could already see how guilty she was – she didn't know what she was guilty for, she had only been honest and it would have come out either way sooner or later, and she hadn't felt bad for blurting it out back then because it had shut him up and it was what she had needed at the time, but now … now there was so much different.

He was looking at his folded hands and the floor, trying to gather up all the courage needed to go on speaking. It seemed hard. Difficult. Impossible. She had a pretty good idea how he was feeling. There were things she couldn't talk about either.

He managed looking up, looking at the two agents for a moment – it didn't seem to make it any easier for him, since … there was guilt, she realized, he felt guilty for something, and it was crushing him.

Then he met her gaze. Darja arched an eyebrow in question, in a silent question that was hanging between them – she couldn't put into words what she was asking, what she was offering, what he was asking of her.

Merlin nodded, a small gesture with much more weight than that, he was giving in with a heavy breath and hesitation because he understood he couldn't do it.

It surprised her. She … she didn't have any words to express the turmoil of feelings inside of her.

"My job wasn't as easy as just killing people," she said then, looking at the two agents, slowly, carefully – she didn't know what she was afraid of but she knew death and torture were harder to bear for those who hadn't grown up around it. "While my client wanted me to kill all of you, they were pretty insistent that Merlin watched."

Her words shocked them the moment they left her lips, and they looked at him, looking for conformation. He could even really nod.

Darja felt out of place – she had seen and experienced a thousand things worse and she couldn't bring herself to care. And she didn't like that, because … she just didn't, she wanted to jump out of her skin, it was just … it was as if she was missing an integral part of being a normal human being. The thought left a bitter taste.

The boy swallowed, licking his lips like he was about to say something – he didn't speak right away, couldn't.

"That … changes things," the girl said, the words slipping her before she really knew that she had said them.

Merlin nodded, slowly, looking so horrible she wanted to say something comforting but she didn't know any comforting words. Even if she did, she would still be wary of people, of the people around her and … it was bad, she knew, and she wanted to change but instead she only seemed to fall back into old habits – maybe she was too harsh to herself, change took a while and it wasn't easy and yet …

"But why would anyone want to do that?" the boy wondered.

Darja shrugged.

"It seems personal," the girl added and Merlin nodded again – she got the feeling that he knew, that he had an idea. The realization was hitting him hard and she felt like the only one who could really see it, she felt like the only one who knew there was more to it.

Was she supposed to say something, did he want her to, should she? She knew how bad it could be, how much it could backfire and go wrong.

She also knew he was trusting her and she didn't want to misuse that trust and … maybe she just didn't want to make another mistake when she had made so many already, maybe she should stop thinking about it, maybe she should start thinking before acting now, maybe – _she didn't know_ , she was pushing herself into a corner, with her back to the wall, and she couldn't run.

Slowly, she drew in another breath, barely keeping it in her lungs before releasing it, opening her mouth to speak but the words got stuck in her throat, choking her.

"You have an idea, don't you?" she asked then, her tone soft.

He turned his head to look at her, the movement a little too fast, and she saw it, she saw it all – the shadows and the hesitation and the speechlessness. She didn't know what could horrify him that bad, she only knew that you could hate people a lot, that you could develop a hatred so deep it swallowed you whole because they had made you scared once. You were angry, you were furious, you weren't thinking.

Merlin wasn't angry.

He wasn't scared either. He was tired.

His gaze flickered to the two kids before he gave in again – Darja wanted to tell him he didn't have to, but she didn't know if it helped, she didn't want to draw any more attention because she was barely dealing herself.

"I do," he said, holding still, holding too still, not looking at any of them anymore and … it was bad. It was very, very bad.

"It is … a longer story," he went on, carefully, like he didn't want to.

She didn't understand why he wasn't doing it then – maybe he valued the greater good, the good of the mission, just something else more than his own well-being.

"When I was young," he continued, drawing in another breath, every word taking every single ounce of strength he had.

The kids exchanged glances; she wanted to tell him to just stop, but all she did was screaming inside her head, no sound ever leaving her lips, as if she had suddenly turned mute.

"You know you don't have to do this, right?" she managed to say.

It was common sense to her, sure, but to him – she couldn't tell, he seemed to push himself a lot. Not that she didn't do that, sure, but she knew her limits and boundaries, she knew that she didn't have to do something if she really didn't want to. She wasn't sure if anyone had ever bothered to tell Merlin.

Maybe it was also a generation thing, maybe it was simply another thing Jack had taught her, maybe it was something her friends had taught her.

Or maybe Merlin simply didn't think he was – it wasn't a good thought.

"I know," he replied, yet looked like he had only realized now that it was a valid option for him.

Darja nodded, humming in response, not sure whether to reply – she felt like she had already said more than she wanted to, had already expressed that she worried, that she had noticed what was going on with him, that she understood him.

"Yeah, take it easy," the boy muttered, the expression on his face hovering somewhere between shock and concern, something she couldn't put into words.

Merlin looked at him, slowly nodding, just … she didn't know. He seemed to be fighting – thoughts, memories, emotions, words, everything.

It was just – she wanted to tell him it was alright, because it was, because there was nothing wrong with being careful and taking a step back.

She was sure these two agents were trusting him, they wouldn't complain if he kept something to himself for once especially since they had already seen how hard it was for him.

It should be driving her crazy, not knowing things, but it was making her restless, it was making breathing hard because the air was getting thicker with all of the unspoken words, it was all just … getting too much.

There was another pause and – fuck, she didn't know why she was suddenly so uneasy, but it sucked. There was an icky feeling, right beneath her skin, under her arms and legs and fingers, something heavy settling on her shoulders.

It was getting personal and she didn't know how to deal with that; she didn't know what made this any different from her conversation with Merlin earlier because it wasn't different except for the presence of two more people.

Yeah, maybe that was the problem. Since she wasn't doing so well with baring herself to people.

"I was young once," Merlin said like it was some kind of shocking reveal. It wasn't, everyone had been young once, some just remembered that time more fondly than others. "And … I've made mistakes."

He sounded … like he regretted it, like he regretted making mistakes, but that was bullshit, that were just impossibly high expectations he had concerning himself. She was familiar with perfectionism and the crushing fear and anxiety that came with it, the obsessing over doing everything right up to the point where you failed at everything because you thought, if you couldn't do it perfectly on the first try, there was no point in doing it at all.

"You know that that's natural?" she asked him before she had thought about it, before she had considered that these words could sound way harsher than they were meant to – she was glad her tone was soft, calm, yet it felt like her voice was going to break any second because there were buried memories of being young and feeling guilty for mistakes that weren't her own, for things she couldn't have prevented even if she tried.

The two kids exchanged a glance, nodding as if they agreed with her.

"I do," Merlin answered but he sounded like he didn't, he sounded like he hadn't understood what she was trying to tell him.

He took a deep breath, the air trembling in his chest. It was making her worry.

"I was recruited into the service early," he went on and the way he said it made her stomach twist like it was made out of barbed wire. "I was reckless."

There was a story coming and it wasn't a good one and she didn't want to hear it – Darja didn't know why it was bothering her so much, really, she was a hitman, she had heard worse than that.

"I thought, I was good," he said. "But it was a difficult time, I was new to coordinating missions and technology wasn't as well advanced as it is today." He swallowed, pausing before continuing, briefly, so very, very briefly, like, if the silence lasted too long, he wouldn't be able to speak anymore.

It ached in her chest, behind her ribs since she knew the feeling, since she remembered how hard bearing these stories was. She had done it once, twice, years ago when she couldn't talk without crying.

"It was supposed to be a simple spy mission," he said. "Some work uncovering a mafia family who was rumored to have connections to people with nuclear warheads at their disposal." He took another breath. "I collected the information, I send an agent in. Things went wrong, but he got out. When he came back to London, his family had been murdered. He blamed me."

Yeah, that sounded exactly what she had feared he'd say. It hadn't been his fault, it sounded like something the mafia would do, but how the fuck was she supposed to tell him?

"He died a couple of years later on another mission," Merlin added.

She swallowed, nearly choking on the questions she had to ask to be sure about this, on the questions she didn't want to ask.

"Did you find his body?" she asked after a moment.

He looked at her, confused, blinking, not seeming to understand what she meant – then he did, she could see it in his eyes, the resignation, she could see him … no, he wasn't falling apart, he was … she didn't want to know.

"No," he said, the possibility hanging between them.

Darja hesitated, not wanting to continue questioning, but she had to, because … she needed to.

"Was this mission set in Russia?"

"Yes," he answered. "Why do you ask?"

Well, there was a problem. She didn't know what to tell him without saying too much, after all, the mafia was … careful with these things, so she really had to watch her words and what they implied. Which was hard enough normally, but as of right now …

"Well," she answered, forcing down the urge to shift in her seat and look away, because that wouldn't make anything better either. "The thing is, with Russia, you can't get involved with illegal stuff without getting – at some point – involved with the mafia, so …"

Merlin nodded, yet, she wasn't sure if he understood, because most people didn't know what the mafia was really like – not that she was implying that he didn't know, but … she wasn't sure.

"So, there's no one else who could hate you as much as this guy?" the boy asked after a moment, having cleared his throat.

Merlin looked at him, nodding.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"You don't have to apologize," the girl replied. Darja found herself nodding in agreement.

There was more silence, taking forever, and she had no idea what to do about it again, it was just … bad. Really, really bad.

"Maybe you should take a break," the girl suggested, the sentence surprising her as much as it surprised Merlin.

Darja didn't know why she went with him.


	14. Chapter 14: Overdue

As little as he liked admitting it, considering he was a man in a crucial position and, more importantly, he had long passed the age where a turmoil of emotions was supposed to bother him, Merlin didn't think he had ever done well with feelings and such.

Experiencing them was one thing, noticing them on other people's faces was another – he had been aware that Eggsy and Roxy worried about him, but seeing it so clearly was crushing him; they worried so much, he thought they expected him to fall apart or something similarly worse.

He swallowed. His thoughts still swirled around his head, leaving him confused; he didn't need a break, he needed a task to focus on so that he could distract himself from these things that were keeping him from doing his job.

Darja had joined him, now steadily walking next to him.

He had no explanation for why she did, neither for her tried of helping him. There was nothing in it for her, no advantage in the short or long run, and although he had come to realize that she was not the person he had anticipated, this seemed nearly intimate, if it was the right word to use.

There had been a change happening, unravelling just moments ago, and he didn't consider it bad. Perhaps he should, however … as wary as he should be, he could no longer think of her as someone actively trying to destroy Kingsman in any possible way. He had seen her honest and genuine, he had learned how it looked like on her, and, in retrospect, he could tell when she lied … and she hadn't lied in a while, even if telling the truth would have hurt less, even if the pain she bore was obvious, even if being honest wasn't an advantageous trait for a hitman, but, he figured, as a man with not so advantageous traits for a handler, he was in no position to judge.

Her words had sounded egoistic, selfish, but they weren't, no – he simply had put work first for so long, putting himself first felt exactly like treason on the service and everything he had sworn to protect.

Either way, the story had to be told eventually, and he saw no difference between doing so now or later, expect that, if he had not done it now, it could have been too late. If they were short on anything, it was time.

Yet, there was this burning in his stomach.

"Thank you," he said then, pushing up his glasses.

She studied him with a sceptically arched eyebrow.

"I don't think you've gotta thank me for that," she replied with a small snort, burying her hands in the pockets of her pants.

He glanced at her for a moment, nearly expecting an explanation as she tended to give in to the silence when left to it for too long. This time she did not.

They had left behind thick carpets and old wooden hallways, instead now walking on concrete floors and under artificial light, the quiet broken by the unmuffled echoes of their steps that made it even harder to find any kind of words, no matter their nature or language – Merlin did not know which to use, if he could think of any at all and if they did not flee him, leaving him speechless in face of so much to say.

Those he considered speaking he kept to himself, for speaking them on a later date when he had figured out their meaning, when he understood why he did feel the need of speaking them.

He opened the door to the kitchen when he reached it, hoping no one else had chosen this particular moment to stay there.

From where he stood, he didn't spot anyone, so he stepped aside, letting Darja enter first before following her and closing the door behind him.

She nearly stopped in the middle of the room, hesitating – it wasn't as much actual hesitation as habit, he supposed, a habit she had gained over the years as a hitman, surveying a room the second she entered it to asses threats and objects she could use for defence or offence.

She moved towards the table after that, while he took two mugs from the cupboard, a small gesture of gratitude. It was unusual, surely, yet, there were a lot of small gesture between them that didn't mean a lot, that were not much more than simple things but at the same time, he felt as if they did mean much more than any words could ever convey – how she was watching him, how she was talking to him, how he was keeping his distance, how he didn't bother her when he knew she wasn't doing well.

There was still coffee left in the pot, not fully cooled down, so he filled it in both cups, handing her one.

Darja had settled on one of the chairs, leaning against the back rest with a shoulder, having crossed her legs, and it appeared as if she had watched him until he had turned around – now she was arching an eyebrow at him in question.

"Do you not like coffee?" he questioned with a frown of his own, his voice quieter than he had anticipated, quieter than he wanted it to be.

"I have a friend who kills people by poisoning them," she told him as she took the cup, wrapping both her hands around it. "I'm generally cautious about these things."

"I see," he said, sitting down in the chair across from her.

"Also, I don't like coffee," she added, the statement meant to be casual with a hint of a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

"Is there anything I can offer you instead?" he asked.

"Alcohol," she answered in a matter-of-fact voice with another arch of her eyebrows, taking a sip from her coffee. "Sanity. Both." She shrugged.

He was not sure whether it was meant to be a joke, as strange and weird as it would be, and though he meant asking, he couldn't – her words sank his stomach and he was sick, there was much more to it.

The silence returned, lasting for a couple of moments, for longer than he had thought he could endure it.

"I've got something to say," Darja said then.

He raised his head, looking at her with a frown. Their gazes met and she didn't look away; there was something in her eyes he hadn't seen before – it was an emotion, a profound, deep one, one he couldn't describe or name, one that made both of them hesitate.

"Go ahead," he murmured, his voice hoarse.

"Sorry," she said. Nothing more, nothing less.

"For what?" he asked, quieter and softer but it wasn't a bad thing.

"I might have said and done things that might have made you uncomfortable," she replied, her expression serious and … it was another little thing, another truth they told each other, another gesture.

"I see," he answered, tilting his head to a nod. "I appreciate it, but there is nothing you have to be sorry about."

She blinked at him in a moment of confusion, then returning the nod, the rest going unspoken again. It seemed to be a constant, one of the few things that was constant about both of them.

Merlin studied her for a moment, then watched the room, returned his attention to the coffee inside his mug before he took another sip – it was nearly cold by now –, his gaze sticking to her again as if she had something naturally drawing his attention.

Now, there was something to her that didn't fit her, something that was off – he couldn't tell what it was and he didn't know what to do about it, he even thought that she didn't want him to do anything, yet … it was impossible to simply ignore it.

"Is there anything troubling you?" he questioned and she glanced at him, her eyebrows drawn together.

She hesitated and he didn't blame her; they weren't exactly the best of friends.

"It's not that important," she answered with a shrug, but she looked so tired, so exhausted, so … not entirely but partly broken.

He nodded, accepting her decision.

Darja took a sip from her own mug, watching him over the edge of it as if she was expecting another kind of reaction, as if she was expecting him to pressure her – she was defensive, surely having a harsh reply on tip of her tongue.

Merlin returned her gaze silently as he took a sip of his coffee, another silent question hanging between them, although it was one of he easier ones, one he could answer if it was asked.

She didn't ask him, instead continuing to watch him, the brown of her eyes pale in the artificial light coming from above them, he noticed – Merlin couldn't remember ever looking at someone for so long before, not since he had left active fields service at least, and there was something about it past words.

"Did I ever tell you how strange you are?" she questioned then, setting down her cup, her words so quiet and soft he barely heard her; she wasn't disturbing the silence, she had melted into it. There was calm about it, about her, something he had never seen on her before – she had always seemed restless, impulsive, like the silence was summoning bad memories or feelings, but now … she was nothing like it. It interested him, it drew him to her, it slowed his heart beat as if to match hers.

"I think you did just now," he replied, not talking much louder than she had, tilting his head.

Her lips twitched, nearly pulling into a smile – something stopped her.

"Yeah, but really," she muttered as if he had disagreed with her.

And … he did not know what to make out of it; he had always been aware that he was differing from most and there was no issue with that, yet, the way Darja had said it made him think he was truly unique, one in a million, and that was highly unlikely.

"You make it sound like people like me are unusual," he replied after a moment, weighing his words as he did not mean to cause any harm. "I am simply being myself."

"Oh, there are lots of people who are themselves," she answered with both of her hands put around her mug, looking at him, her shoulders too tense. "Most of them just aren't decent. Or good." She tilted her head, a string of brown hair falling into her face and it was off-setting the tension in her jaw a little as she pushed it behind her ear. It didn't stay there. "I think, you truly are one of the good guys, morally and characteristically speaking, and it's really strange meeting someone like you when you're a hitman."

She was speaking the truth, an aching truth, the weight of it crushing him.

"I suppose," he answered, at loss for words, so much he wanted to tell her, but there was so much to unpack first, so much between the lines to understand first, he didn't know where to start. "There is no reason to blame yourself though."

She arched an eyebrow at him.

He returned her gaze with a frown, still not sure what to do, whether to continue speaking or leaving the topic. There seemed to be old wounds here, wounds he had no intention of re-opening, and yet all needed to do that was one wrong word and, he was afraid, he had never been empathetic enough to know when a word was wrong.

But … he knew that this thing they had, starting with this mutual understanding, was intimate, rare, that it was something that he didn't want to trade.

She gave another shrug, the moment for the gesture to be casual having long passed. Instead it was dismissing, as if she was downplaying the issue, pretending it wasn't important after all, but it was, and he didn't know how to make her understand that her problems and feeling mattered – it was the same she had tried teaching him. The irony was bitter on his tongue.

He hesitated, the words slipping him whenever he tried putting them in an order that would make up a sentence.

She had returned her attention to the coffee in front of her, looking at it like it could provide all the answers to all the questions she had and it was making it difficult for him to stay silent.

"Darja," he said, her name still foreign on his tongue.

She raised her head to look at him, cocking a single eyebrow with an unmoved expression. Merlin knew better than to believe that.

"If you want to talk," he said, slowly, watching her eyebrow wander up further with every word he spoke. "I would listen."

She opened her mouth, taking in a short breath, as if she was going to speak, but she closed it again without having made a sound, swallowing, tension in the lines of her jaw and in her shoulders and in the way she held the mug – there was so much of it, he thought she was going to snap with the next word from his lips.

Merlin didn't know if he dared to, if he could speak at all, after seeing her like this – something about it was making it hard for him to breathe, something was making the words stuck in his throat, something was reminding him of feeling like there was no one he could trust. But Darja wasn't him.

"Yeah," she muttered, hoarse. "The thing is, I shouldn't be trusting you."

"And I shouldn't be trusting you," he replied, soft and careful, speaking without the intention of making it sound mean or harsh, no, he just … it was a simple statement, a fact.

"Well, that's the issues, isn't it?" she asked with a crooked smile that was barely tugging at the corners of her mouth, something biting and aching to it – sarcasm, cynicism, underlying pain.

He blinked.

He hadn't thought of it as an issue yet, in fact, he hadn't thought about it much at all; he had simply considered it inconvenient for him to trust her despite not having enough reasons to.

For her … it had to come close to the end of the world for her.

"Possibly," he said after a moment, awkwardly clearing his throat. There was guilt.

Darja didn't answer, simply studying him for a moment, for a moment longer than necessary, her eyes fixed on him in a way that would have made him uneasy earlier due to the intensity of her gaze, but now he saw past that and … there wasn't much more than apathy swallowing every other feeling in protection of them.

It hurt too.

"Well," she said with a heavy sigh. "Guess I'm too deep in this mess already." It was a silent question, a rhetorical one perhaps that wasn't directed at him at all, and yet, he felt the need to reply, the need to tell her … he didn't know what he would tell her, but he would say something, anything, he would …

He opened his mouth, but his words failed him again – she was trusting him and he was trusting her and that was, in all sense of logic, an issue.

"I suppose, we both are," he said then, none of these words right.

Darja shrugged, wasn't even looking at him any more as she stared into her cup as if it was holding more than her reflection.

He studied her, perhaps too long, looking for words, for anything, but he didn't even know if he was truly thinking – there was pain speaking from her posture in ways he couldn't explain, there was an aching buried so deep he was barely seeing any of it, there was this apathy breaking apart; there was this knowledge he hadn't been so different once, there was this cold, hard realization that he understood her and it hurt somewhere in his chest, between one rib and the other.

He closed his mouth and kept the words to himself as the silence settled between them, getting thicker and heavier with all the unsaid matters each time. Now, they were only strangers, barely knowing each other, and the things longing to be said were of personal, inappropriate nature.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, he glanced at her again – she had gotten paler and he found himself looking for a blue-ish tone on her lips, but there wasn't anything. Luckily.

Merlin returned his attention to his own mug that had been empty for a while, filling it with thoughts now.


	15. Chapter 15: Crushing

Uh, fuck. Again.

Darja didn't know if she was just so bad at doing things or if it all just continuously got worse without any chance of stopping it – the result was the same, really, she was in some shit. Kinda, in a way; the thing was, it was only shitty because she was a hitman.

She had to leave eventually, there was no getting around it, there was even a part of her that was looking forward to it since it meant that everything would be back to normal and nothing was normal about her current situation, starting with Merlin. In all honesty, first time she had actually met him, she had thought he was another one of those jerks but he wasn't and that was the issue.

People in her business weren't decent. They weren't nice. They weren't good. Not all were bad, no, but even with her friends … she wasn't saying they were bad people but they weren't the best either.

Still: She was a hitman. She was going to go back, so she better didn't get used to any of it – she feared it was already too late for that, after all, there was another part of her that was already way too comfortable with it.

Slowly, she breathed in, these thoughts more bitter on her tongue than the coffee. Nausea rose in her throat and she swallowed it down.

She had gotten herself into this mess, so she had to get herself out of it, yet, at the same time, she genuinely didn't want to – she didn't have any idea what to do about that.

Worse, there was panic now, slowly bubbling up beneath her skin, making her want to drum her fingers against the table.

Darja tried not to, instead holding the mug tighter. The warmth was long gone and she was feeling cold, drawing up her shoulders against it and pulling the sleeves of her pullover over her hands.

She caught his glance when she looked up for a moment, so many words swirling around her head she couldn't keep them apart, there was English and there was Russian and there was … none of it made any sense.

"I'm alright," she said then after a moment of struggling, the corners of her mouth moving upwards on their own – it wasn't really a smile, she thought.

Merlin hesitated, studying her, before he inclined his head to a nod and it astonished her, because … he was accepting it, just like that, although it was obvious that she wasn't as alright as she had said, but he still respected her boundaries and he still respected that she didn't want to talk about it. She appreciated it.

It wasn't much, a small gesture, and yet, it meant something, it meant something to her, even though it was barely common sense, not anything else but decency.

She returned her attention to the mug and the table, staring at both of it, not doing any better than she had before. Not that she had expected that, she had just … she didn't know. That was a problem.

Darja forced down the sigh that nearly escaped her, running a hand through her hair then, combing some strings behind her. They wouldn't stay there long.

Then she took another deep breath, slowly drawing in the air, holding it in her lungs, and finally releasing it, hoping it would calm her heart beat a little. It didn't do anything.

It must have been a while since they had come here, it must have been quite a while since they had started talking and maybe it was about time they went back, but … she didn't want to. She didn't want to interact with other people. She didn't want to leave that moment, she just … didn't, although she knew denial wasn't going to help her, but it was easier than thinking about everything else – actually, no, the denial wasn't easier, it was the core of her whole problem.

So, perhaps, it was a good moment to start doing something about it. Perhaps.

Darja took a sip from the coffee, twisting the cup back and forth between her hands, breathing in deeper, holding the air in her lungs for a moment longer, trying to get rid of the taste in her mouth.

It didn't work, she still felt like throwing up, and after a moment of consideration she emptied the rest of it, which wasn't making anything better, yet she needed something to do, she didn't want to just sit here, she didn't want to think.

"Is there something else you want to drink?" Merlin asked, making her look at him with an arched eyebrow – he was speaking softly, quietly, he was really just offering it and it was throwing her off balance much more than it should.

"Water would be fine," she managed to say, even giving him a brief, unsure smile. It barely lasted a second, so she hoped he hadn't seen it, but that was probably hoped too much, after all, that was Merlin she was talking about and the chance of missing something, no matter how small, was microscopic.

He nodded and got up, gradually pushing back his chair and taking her mug before walking towards all the cupboards and shelves again.

"You know I could have gotten it myself, right?" she asked, putting her chin on the palm of her hand as she watched him.

"I think you mistake chivalry for me trying to belittle you," he told her, turning around to look at her.

"Maybe," she replied with a sigh. "I'm … not used to it and it's kinda weird when people don't do stuff to mock you."

"I am aware," he told her and there was another moment where they didn't need any words. "But I assure you, I don't mean to disrespect you."

"Oh, I know," she replied and couldn't help another smile. "I'm still trying to get used to it."

He returned the gesture before cleaning her cup and then filling it with tap water.

"Thanks," she muttered when he stepped closer, offering her the mug she took carefully.

Again, he simply tilted his head to a nod as he sat down again, the silence returning when she took a sip.

The water was cold, burning on her tongue, and she hadn't noticed how hot the panic had been in her throat until now – strangely, she had always thought she was pretty self-aware, but there were so many things, it was no surprise she had been distracted. (She wasn't saying it had anything to do with the man in front of her, she was saying that she would have been a whole lot less calm if it hadn't been for him.)

"You know," she said then, taking another sip, watching him over the edge of the ceramic. "Maybe we should go back."

"Perhaps," he answered, a frown returning to his face after such a long while. "Do you want to?"

"I don't know what I want," she replied with a shrug, setting down the mug. "Also, you don't have to treat me like I'm made out of glass."

"You're right, I don't have to," he said, sitting up. "But I do. It is hard to look away when I am very much aware of your boundaries. There is no reason in making this any harder than it has to be."

"I get the impression that you might like me after all," she remarked with a twitch of her lips, the words laced with too much sarcasm to be serious and yet-

"In return, I do get the impression that you do not hate me either," he answered, the corners of his mouth twitching with the same kind of fake honesty her own had, but they were moving on thin ice, one second away from breaking in and having to face the reality of it.

If it had been so easy to face, they wouldn't trade their words and gestures so carefully.

The moment caught them or perhaps they caught the moment, she didn't know, she looked at him and it pressed all the air out of her lungs, her heart suddenly very loud behind her ribs.

All of a sudden, the door opened and she nearly flinched, feeling somewhat … caught, although she hadn't actually done anything that would justify that feeling, it was just … she had let her guard down there for a moment.

The door was hanging ajar by barely an inch and whoever had opened it, cautiously pushed it open further under Merlin's and her gazes, the air suddenly too heavy to fit in her lungs, she had trouble calming herself even though there was nothing worth hiding.

A head poked in, she thought she had met that person before, but it was hard to tell from where she was sitting.

"Oh, there you are," they said, breathing a sigh of relief, then turning to someone who was standing in the hallway, and she recognized that boy, that agent who was barely grown up, when the girl entered the room behind him – they weren't kids, so she shouldn't call them that, but it was hard to think of them as adults when all the adults she knew were grim and bitter and pessimistic. (Maybe that didn't make her an adult then, maybe, although she _was_ bitter and pessimistic.)

"Has something happened?" Merlin asked, his frown deepening, but there was still something soft to his expression, something smoothing the edges of his concern.

"No," the boy said quickly, running a hand through his hair. "It's just been a while and we were wondering if something had happened." The more he spoke, the more obvious his accent got, he was only looking at Merlin and trying to be careful with his words, yet stumbling over them – he wasn't trying to be all tough and serious, he was rather … genuine. Yeah, he was. Maybe at some point, they all had started being genuine and Darja didn't dislike it, but there was a feeling crawling up her spine, right beneath her skin, itching, whispering to her that it was all only temporary.

Merlin nodded, slowly, the tension growing further with the gesture and she had a feeling she knew why, a feeling aching behind her chest, one that wasn't surprising her but it wasn't easing the pain either.

He motioned them to get closer, perhaps to sit down too, their hesitation having something fragile, like they were all one tiny step away from admitting that everything was falling apart – she was unusually calm for that, maybe the world had fallen apart around her too many times already, maybe she just knew she had the strength to pick herself up and try again, maybe she was just so used to it that it didn't bother her anymore.

The boy sat down next to Merlin, the girl hesitated for a moment, looking at her if she wanted to ask something and Darja calmly drew her eyebrow up in a silent question which seemed to be answer enough since she sat down next to her.

There was silence at first, no one daring to speak, no one actually daring to say something as if one wrong word was all it needed.

Merlin took in a breath like he was going to speak and she looked at him, waiting for the words to leave his mouth despite already having an idea what they were going to be. None of them was going to like them.

"If the person behind this plan is truly the one I suspect," he began and every letter was weighing heavier on her shoulders. "I am not sure where to start looking for them."

The other two agents stared at him, wide-eyed, their mouths open as if they wanted to say something, express their sympathy and trust, but if they could make a single noise, the silence drowned it, loud as thunder.

Darja nodded, slowly, not knowing what to say because she saw how much it was troubling him and how much he was suffering; she didn't have comforting words, she had honesty. Too much of it, spilling from her tongue without any way to stop it, dripping from her lips like water from a spring.

"It's a difficult thing," she said. "Looking for dead people who aren't that dead, but there has to be something. They can't just go and build up a new life without leaving a trace." Merlin looked at her, as surprised as everyone else was, including herself. "What I mean: I'm sure you – we'll find something."

She wasn't only saying this because she liked him, she was saying it because she believed it, because she had experienced it since she had haunted supposedly dead people before – okay, maybe she was also saying it because she liked him.

"I hope so," Merlin replied, stunning the other two agents further as he smiled, carefully, the corners of his mouth moving so gradually, she felt like time had slowed down to match his speed so she could see every inch of it, every inch of how this genuine smile happened and that was probably why her brain stopped comprehending everything for a moment. Just like that. One second to another. Really annoying.

Her own smile came to her lips hesitantly but there was no way of hiding it, even if she looked down on the table and studied her cup all intensely all of a sudden.

The quiet lingered for a couple of seconds longer in which she was way too aware of the other two's presence, she could swear she was nearly feeling them look at her, and, honestly, there was no reason to be so nervous about it – she was dropping the acting, _yes_ , but so was Merlin, so were all of them, whether they were aware of it or not.

"Have we-" the boy said, cutting himself off before he could form anything close to a question. He didn't have to say anything else, Darja knew what he was going to ask, Merlin knew, all of them knew, yet no one answered right away, maybe no one would actually answer anytime, because … she didn't know. She didn't know if there was an answer, she didn't know if there was an actual explanation involving anything real – there was so much silence, so thick with the unspoken things, the words too heavy on their tongues to ever be formed.

A buzz startled her, so unfamiliar she didn't recognized it, and then another, she needed a moment to realize it was her phone. She drew it from the back pocket of her pants, sitting at the edge of the chair.

The number wasn't saved to her contacts but she knew it anyway; Darja felt sick, freezing up, reading it again and again, hoping she had been mistaken the first time. She hadn't been.

"I … I've gotta take that," she muttered, not sure if the words were loud enough for anyone to hear as she got up, leaving the room before anyone could say something.

Pulling the door shut behind her, she swiped right on the display, holding the device close to her ear, her heart loud enough in her throat that she could swear he could hear it, walking a few steps away.

At first, there was nothing, not for more than single second – unusual enough, worry rising hot from inside of her.

"Come back," Jack said then, he just … said it, barely any emotion in it; there was something she was picking on, something sinking her stomach, something making her want to throw up.

"Come … back?" she asked, suddenly deaf, her ears ringing.

"Yes," he answered, putting her in front of a choice she would have made easily a day or two ago, maybe even a couple of hours ago, but now … she didn't know. She just didn't know.

She couldn't think, her head was all clogged, she didn't know language anymore.

Her breath trembled when she drew it in, holding in her lungs although it was acid, releasing it too quickly, stumbling over her own heartbeat, struggling with her own thoughts – she wanted to say yes but her chest ached at the idea of it like she just had been stabbed a thousand times; she wanted to say no but she'd be putting herself at risk for people she barely knew and she had never done that before.

She leaned against the wall, needing some support, crossing her arms, trying to breathe normally again. It wasn't working, nothing was truly working.

By now, she should have answered, but she couldn't speak, no sound was leaving her lips when she opened her mouth, her head suddenly went blank every time she thought about telling him how she felt.

"Darja?" he asked, the gesture only more meaningful because he rarely asked anything at all.

"I … I don't know," she answered then. "I just don't know, Jack."

"While it was not intended as a question, I know that I put you in front of a decision," he said. "I simply wasn't aware it was such a hard one." He wasn't mocking her, he wasn't making fun of her or something, in fact, he … she wasn't sure, he nearly sounded … not worried, not sympathetic – understanding. He sounded as if he understood her. As if he had been faced by a choice that would impact the rest of his life as well.

"I know," she said with a sigh. "It's just-" She didn't know where the hesitation was coming from, she didn't know why she wasn't just telling him, since, if anyone was going to understand her – or at least try – it was going to be him. It was Jack. He could pretend not to care about other people all he liked, but she knew him better than that.

"You are aware of the consequences?" This time it wasn't a question.

Darja hummed in response.

"Now is the most unfortunate time you could have picked," he told her then, making her heart rate pick up.

"What do you mean?"

"There is a traitor," he said. "I have yet to find them."

"You're shitting me," she uttered although she knew he wasn't; in all the years she knew him, he had never made a joke. Never. "You've gotta be shitting me."

"I am not," he replied. "I cannot guarantee for your safety."

"I can take care of myself," she told him, silently, suddenly all calm and collected; she knew what she was going to do and that gave her some kind of security. Maybe it had to do with the world falling apart around her

"Also, it feels like I'm going to a mistake either way," she added with a shrug, her lips twitching.

"Make the better one," he said, the silence lingering for a couple of second longer as if he was waiting for her to say something, but then he hung up, the conversation apparently over for him.

The line was dead, but her head was so full of thoughts, she wanted to call back and tell him all of it – how grateful she was, how thankful she was, how much she liked him, that he had been the father she had never had, that he … there was so much, she was forgetting how to use words.

Gradually, she lowered her arm, glancing at her display – it had turned dark again and she was seeing eye to eye with her reflection, a woman wondering what the fuck she was doing. Well, that wasn't true. She knew what she was doing. It might was the biggest dump of bullshit and it might was the most stupid idea she had ever have, but she was going to do this.

Darja shoved her phone back into the pocket of her pants, shaking her head and running a hand through her hair, closing her eyes for a moment.

No going back now. She had to live with her choice. And she would.

She turned her head towards the door she had closed behind her, taking in another breath, waiting a moment until her heartbeat had settled completely, until there was no stuttering and nervously flattering anymore. Only then she set into motion, her steps now so loud in the empty hallway, the handle now too cold beneath her cautious touch, and for a brief second, she felt alone, left alone, again, because in the end, she had always been along – people supported her, but, in the end, it had been her against whatever problem she was facing.

Darja lowered her hand and swallowed; she had never blamed anyone. Her friends were all hitman and she'd be naive to pretend none of them had issues that made forming bonds difficult, nearly impossible; she wasn't too different herself, she might got attached easily but she had never been able to hold up anything meaningful.

And, standing there, she realized that no matter what she had always said, she wasn't happy with that. She had never been happy being a hitman; she liked the traveling and the money and she liked the satisfaction violence gave her, yes, but she wasn't happy and Jack had taught her better than that.

She raised her hand again, this time pressing down the handle before she could think again and get caught up in her hesitation. Carefully, she pushed open the door, entering the room and pretending she hadn't noticed all the attention shifting to her – it was still making her uneasy – as she closed the door behind her, briefly glancing up before she settled down in her seat again.

Questions hung in the air, heavy enough that she could feel them press down on her shoulders.

Shortly, she looked up, catching Merlin's gaze – he was asking her something and she shook her head, not even knowing what either of them was saying but they didn't need words, they understood each other without them and it was easing the pressure on her shoulders now, more than she had thought something like that ever would.

From the corners of her eyes she noticed the other two exchange glances, looking at each other like they were proving a point.

"Where do we start?" the boy asked, asking all of them. His shoulders were a little too tense and he was trying a little too hard to play tough, yet she couldn't blame him.

"I am not sure," Merlin admitted, regretting speaking the words the second he did since he did have an idea, although he wasn't believing in it. "I could go through the systems to check for any unwanted programs."

The boy nodded. "Then we'll help you."

"No," Merlin said with a sigh, sounding tired and defeated and she didn't like it. "Go home. You need the rest."

The other two agents seemed like they were about to protest, as was Darja, but she swallowed it, waiting until the two had given in and left them alone, not without hesitation, that was.

"Why do you think you deserve the rest less than they do?" she asked him and he looked at her for a moment, blinking.

"I wouldn't be able to," he said then.

"Why do you think they are?" she asked him, tilting her head. "You don't have to atone for your sins or whatever; you shouldn't push yourself further than you already have."

He opened his mouth to speak, yet not speaking, appearing frozen, speechless, surprised, and she felt as if she had told him … something that was hard to believe.

"Look," she said. "I understand that you want to make something right and I understand that you want to protect them, but they worry about you and you're not making anything better with acting like you don't want to have them around."

"I suppose," he said, so much resignation about him that she wanted to reach over the table and … do what? She wasn't sure.

"I never thought it would be so hard," he added in a quieter voice.

"Neither did I," she answered, managing a smile. "But you're not alone, alright? Never."

"I know," he said, nodding, before he got up. "Could you use something to do?"

"Could you use the help?" she retorted, grinning for a brief moment, standing up herself.


	16. Chapter 16: Invitations and Surprises

Going didn't feel right. It felt like leaving Merlin alone and contributing nothing, it felt like being a burden, it felt like some kind of treason.

Slowly, he shoved his hands into the pockets of his pants, walking next to Roxy as they made their way out of the mansion. There had been a hesitation to their steps from the second they had exited the kitchen – Eggsy didn't have a lot of words for it, just confused emotions in his stomach and throat.

Fear wasn't actually among them, not as in 'he feared Darja was going to kill him', rather … as in 'fearing he wouldn't do enough, wouldn't be enough'.

He exchanged a glance with Rox, their steps slowing down until they came to a halt in the middle of the hallway. Neither of them spoke right away; words were a difficult thing to do and he hadn't yet sorted through everything clogging his head and taking up space, there was just so much there, he needed time. And his friend was giving him all the time he needed – it took off the edge, the stress, the need of immediately saying something.

"I've been thinking," he said then and she nodded, still watching him and waiting. "While it's all nice and good that they get along, I … don't know what to make out of it."

"I know what you mean," Roxy replied, crossing her arms. Her expression had turned serious, had taken this cautious note to it he saw too often. There was nothing wrong with being cautious, of course, but it was the caution where she weighted her words like they were made out of gold.

The silence returned.

He scratched the back of his head, looking for something to say but there was nothing, he had no idea to propose, no words to genuinely express his feelings about the situation, it was just … Every time he walked into a room where both of them were present, he felt as if he was intruding, as if he was interrupting something he hadn't been aware of and that was making him feel all kinds of unpleasant.

Roxy gently shook her head, he barely caught the motion from the corner of his eye before looking up, then drawing his eyebrows together in question.

"I think they're genuine," she said after a moment of having sorted her thoughts, looking at him with her amber eyes, and he believed her. He believed they weren't playing some sick game or something, yet, this was still Merlin they were talking about and, further, Darja wasn't exactly an ordinary human either. In fact, the two of them had seemed like polar opposites at first and now, it wasn't easy dealing with this change – whatever they were doing, he was accepting it, as long as no one got hurt. Which didn't seem to be the case but he had never been that good at reading Merlin and reading Darja was physically impossible.

Eggsy nodded in response, a moment too late.

"It's in the way they look at each other," Roxy muttered.

"Yeah, like they understand each other," he answered. It wasn't a romantic thing – he at least didn't think it was –, though it was intimate still, intimate in the sense of simply knowing someone else so well, you knew what they was going through their mind. There was also a certain kind of vulnerability to it, without that pretending of being tough and unbreakable. Honestly, it sounded like something people developed when working along side each other for years.

"Seriously, I don't know what their deal is," he said with a sigh, shaking his head. "But it's not a bad thing." He caught the glimpse of a frown forming on Roxy's face. "I mean, we've known Merlin for a bit more than a year and we never managed talking some common sense into him. And then Darja shows up and does it without even trying."

"It's strange," Roxy remarked, sunken into thought, tilting her head as she looked at him. For a moment she seemed as if she was going to continue, but she kept the words to herself, maybe for a later occasion or not for him at all – he didn't mind. She'd tell him when she wanted to. And if she didn't, he wouldn't be mad.

"So, I've been wondering," he went on, catching his friend's attention. "About what they think. What they truly think." _Whether they're_ _actually honest_ , he wanted to say and immediately felt bad for it, since he didn't actually doubt it, yet, at the very same time, he was somehow exactly doing that – he couldn't help the suspicion. People changed, he was very painfully aware of that, but it usually didn't happen so fast and so drastically.

"We can't just ask," Roxy said, carefully, watching him for a moment. "I'd like to, but it seems like quite the personal topic to touch on."

He hummed in agreement, rubbing the back of his neck, mulling over possible scenarios of how they would go. Not well in most cases, he feared, if they even managed to put what they were so cautiously approaching into words – personal matters had always been difficult and while Merlin was a good person, Eggsy didn't always think the man understood how to handle these things. Or what it was like to have family and friends outside of the service and trying to balance both of it; he seemed to live for Kingsman and as admirable as that was, most of the time it was cause to worry.

Yet … asking seemed like the best they could do. They might were spies but that didn't mean they were good enough to uncover something like that without being discovered first – and he was sure that would happen since they weren't that experienced at hiding stuff from two people who were so very good at figuring others out.

"Asking seems like our best shot though," he noted.

"I suppose," she muttered, the frown on her face growing deeper. "But how do you plan on doing that? Even if we manage to catch one of them alone and ask them outright, I don't think we'd get an honest answer."

"True," he replied with a sigh, shaking his head. It was harder than he had imagined, unfortunately, and the more he thought about it, the more difficult it was looking. Honestly, he couldn't come up with anything that would work out in his eyes, no matter what how different his approaches were. It wasn't entirely surprising, neither Merlin or Darja were the kind of people who would say something when they didn't want to and it was nearly impossible to convince them otherwise then.

"Maybe it'll work when we manage talking to them outside of the headquarters," Roxy reasoned, speaking quietly, more to herself than to him.

"Yeah," he said, nodding as he thought about it. "That might work. Question is just how." That was nearly impossible too, the last time they had managed to convince Merlin to leave hadn't ended so well … and while that wasn't anyone's fault, it was still weighing heavy.

"We just have to come up with some good reasons," he added with a shrug of his shoulders, even though he knew just too well that it was a whole lot easier said than done.

"Yes," Roxy agreed. "If we manage to convince Darja, it'll be easier to get Merlin to agree to."

"Yeah," he muttered in return, craning his neck. "But I honestly don't have any idea when she's convinced or not."

Roxy nodded. "I don't think it will be that hard," she said then. "After all, she's all for doing things that will help."

"True," he replied, giving her a crooked grin. "If it doesn't work, I guess we just have to explain right there." He wasn't looking forward to that and he wasn't really into doing it either, but, he figured, the world wouldn't end if they had to.

Eggsy shifted his weight to one leg, the silence lingering between them – he already tried finding arguments, simply because there was nothing else to do. He didn't manage to, there were a thousand other things on his mind he had to sort through and he honestly had no idea how to do that. Shit, he couldn't even follow through with one coherent thought, instead there were always, like, three or four, cramming up his head, especially this one thing, always coming up in the quiet moments between two breaths, between two words: He thought about protecting but it made him sick – it was no one's fault, really – and he knew Roxy could take care of herself, but his mum and Daisy couldn't, Jamal and Ryan couldn't. And someone had found them, someone knew they were important to him, and he was afraid of what this someone would do with this information.

He shook his head, trying to get rid of these images – Harry visiting when his father had died, seeing his mum with Dean, Daisy, Harry's death, Jamal and Ryan joking about how he was coming home with a lot of bruises for being a tailor –, catching Roxy's gaze.

"I've just been thinking," he said after a moment, not sure how to say it. "About my mum and Daisy and Jamal and Ryan – I'm worried something could happen to them."

She didn't answer right away.

"I mean, I know you and Merlin can take care of yourselves, but they don't even know what I actually do," he added, closing his eyes for a moment – he was about to apologize, she couldn't help him find a solution for this, because even if they caught this dickhead, there would be another.

His friend nodded, she seemed as if she knew exactly what he was meaning and … he appreciated it, the understanding, the empathy. Her.

She reached out, putting a hand on his shoulder, and he swallowed, feeling … lost, kinda, feeling like it was the first day he had set foot into this building and found himself among rich folks who looked down on him simply because he hadn't grown up with a silver spoon up his arse. Roxy had been his salvation then and she was his salvation now.

"Sorry," he uttered, trying to suck it up and square his shoulders against the world like he had done a thousand times before.

"Don't apologize," she told him with a small, sad smile and his resolve crumbled. "That's what friends are there for, right?"

"Right," he said. "You're the best, Rox."

She only smiled in return.

* * *

They returned to the headquarters the next morning, relatively early, and he was tired. Which had little to do with preference of sleeping in until well past noon – he had talked with Roxy the whole night, about everything and nothing, about their job and their friends, about their life and series. They had just talked, had needed to hear each other's voice, hadn't wanted to be alone with their thoughts.

Maybe that was why he wasn't nervous, he didn't know, maybe there was just nothing to be afraid about. Maybe the nervousness would show up when he entered Merlin's office and looked at him, face to face, having to explain why he was here and what he wanted without making his goal too obvious – he already got nervous when considering that.

So he took a deep breath, drawing the air in slowly but steadily, trying to regain his calm – worst that could happen was that it got awkward and he could handle awkward just fine.

And yet, he was nervous. Very, very nervous. There was nothing he could do about it, there was nothing any of them could do about it, it was all just … He preferred to keep his thoughts in motion, he preferred to keep his hands moving, he didn't want to stand still because he feared that wouldn't end well for him, his head would just come up with something then and he was sure he wouldn't like it.

He glanced at his friend, not sure how she was doing in all of this. Maybe, since she was coming from some aristocratic family, she was better at maintaining an iron control over the emotions she displayed, he had never asked and she had never been so eager to talk about it either. Neither were any other agents. He had just figured, noble families were, mostly, a lot like a pack of starving wolves who would tear each other apart.

They exchanged a short glance and he mustered a smile, somehow. Eggsy had no idea if it was as encouraging as he intended it to be, but it seemed to help and that was what really counted in the end. Roxy returned it, hesitant at first, then it spread over her whole face, lighting it up. And it made him happy, deep in his stomach, deep behind his ribs, it was the same happiness he felt when watching his sister accomplish things and look so very proud of herself – he was always proud of her too, as much as he was proud of Rox.

The further they got into the headquarters, the more he started to consider his words, mull them over again and again until he found one that seemed right, though it was probably best to just let it kinda happen instead of careful planning. Eggsy had the feeling, when it was time to speak, he would have forgotten all about it again. Yeah. Probably.

It was just all head in first then, he guessed. Luckily, it was how he managed most situations.

"Well," he muttered when there was only one turn left, separating them from their destination. "There we go." He wasn't really talking to her, neither to himself, he was just kind of preparing himself for what was going to happen. He guessed. Honestly, he had no idea.

"It's going to be fine," she told him with another smile.

"Yeah," he said, biting back a grin of his own as he looked on ahead, shoving his hands into the pockets of his pants as they kept walking.

Eggsy was still a bit on edge, but he was easier now, easy enough to be a little more optimistic about it.

When they then stood in front of Merlin's office, he knocked twice on the door, the moment of silence before the reaction stretching for so long, he only noticed he had forgotten how to breathe all along when he suddenly felt like suffocating.

"Come on in," Merlin called from the other side, his voice muffled through the door.

He glanced at his friend one more time and simply shrugged his shoulders, before opening the door, going on to enter the room.

First, he noticed Darja. Which was no surprise, he had expected her to be there – yet, it was strange seeing someone else in Merlin's office but the man himself; even other agents had never stayed long, while she had made herself comfortable where she sat, legs drawn up under her and balancing a laptop on her thighs.

Eggsy could remember staying here, he could remember Roxy staying, when the other had been in deep shit or when they hadn't wanted to be alone, and Merlin had never said a word about it, never turned them away – Darja wasn't stranded here for a night though. She look right at home instead, like she actually belonged here … like she was supposed to be here; she didn't seem like an intruder in someone else's space, rather an addition to it and while the thought of the two of them belonging together in more than simply a temporary, professional way was a strange one (he would have never thought about it before but he could see it now), it just felt right.

"What is it?" Merlin asked, looking from his computer and … he was neither tired or overworked, unlike the last couple of days, weeks, months, even though there was already a cup of coffee next to the files spread out on his desk. The fact that he seemed better sent relief right through his veins, along with something tingling right beneath his skin. It wasn't nausea or panic.

His gaze wandered over to Darja who slowly arched an eyebrow at him, questioning as if she didn't know exactly what he was getting at.

"Right," he muttered then, his gaze snapping back to Merlin, looking for words at the very same time he didn't find that quickly. "Roxy and I thought that it might be a good thing to …" Eggsy trailed off, ready to close his mouth the second he sensed rejection. Which he wasn't really, Merlin's frown had just grown deeper and he didn't know what to make out of that.

"To do something to ease up," he finished, swallowing the other words on tip of his tongue he wanted to get out in a rush to convince him.

"As in?" he asked and Eggsy's head went completely blank, he didn't know what to say, he didn't know what to do, it was … bad. Very bad.

"As in getting out of here and having something else on one's mind," Roxy offered and he gave her a thankful smile.

He looked back at Merlin, not having the heart to tell him that it didn't matter whether they were crammed up in this building for the whole day and achieved nothing or went out – sure, they were under pressure, Kingsman was threatened, but they weren't getting anywhere and he could see how it was breaking him, how it just wasn't good for him to work and work and work and never come up with anything.

At first, there was silence. And maybe surprise.

"I don't think it's such a bad idea," Darja remarked, gradually sitting up straighter but with no tension in her body; she was calm, like she had been yesterday, and that quiet was new to her. As if she had suddenly had lost all the hectic, as if it suddenly didn't matter any more to get this done quickly.

Merlin returned her gaze, his frown growing deeper and they seemed to have a conversation of their own, without words, everything conveyed through a single look.

Eggsy glanced at Roxy, who just shrugged; he didn't know why it was irritating him so much, after all it wasn't really anything special, a lot of people did that, but … here was the thing, they still didn't know each other for more than a couple of days and usually, people didn't do that unless they had known each other for years.

"Possibly," Merlin admitted after another moment, a simple word like that already taking a lot of him to speak it – and he got it, he really got it, he wasn't blaming him. More than anything else, he worried.

"What's the worst thing that could happen anyway?" Darja asked with a snort and a roll of her eyes as if she didn't believe she was challenging their all luck with that statement – Eggsy had a couple of answer on the tip of his tongue. He kept them to himself.

Merlin hesitated again, about to reply, about to tell them all about the things he was fearing, but he swallowed the words the last second. He understood that too. Fears were never easy.

Darja arched her eyebrow at him, questioning – just a gesture and there was more about it than words and tone could have ever expressed … he figured, it seemed neither she nor Merlin were too good with that.

"I hate to break it to you," she said then, no edge to her voice, nothing excusing, nothing hard. "But: what do you think you'll achieve if you keep sitting around here over dusted files?" That was the thing he couldn't just do, not like that. Not when the people around him meant a lot to him and he was trying to find a way to phrase things without hurting them.

There was no reply, just uneasy and tense silence that lingered for some seconds, making it impossible to breathe, before Merlin gave in, nodding, getting up from behind his desk.

Yet, he failed to feel … successful, happy, he didn't know, there was something sitting in his stomach like bricks instead and he wasn't alone with that.


	17. Chapter 17: Private

It could have gone worse, he figured; there was still this strange feeling in his stomach that made him uneasy, like … like something was going to happen and it wouldn't be a good thing – honestly, he had no idea why he was so sure about it, maybe he was just paranoid, maybe he was also just nervous.

The silence didn't do anything to calm him, in fact, it was only making everything worse. None of them had spoken a word since they had left the mansion. It was getting to him. Sure, he usually didn't mind silence and it wasn't like he couldn't deal with it, but as of right now, it wasn't just awkward, it was the kind of silence that happened when no one really dared speaking.

He would've said something, if he could, but he lacked the words.

Glancing around, he felt weirdly out of place, though he had grown up in this city; he felt like a stranger in a new place without any map or directions.

It wasn't the first time he was experiencing this, he had have had it before, just … different. In a different way. Not like right now, it hadn't made him choke up and want to go back inside, it hadn't made him want to get back home.

Eggsy shook his head, drawing in a breath of cold air, before releasing it again. Maybe it was the wrong approach to treat this like some kind of mission, maybe, his shoulders were tense and he was constantly scanning his surroundings, looking for a movement out of the corners of his eyes, for a face in the crowd that didn't fit there, for something that was out of the usual, for the bulk of a weapon beneath clothes.

It wasn't his objective, they didn't come here for this, he hadn't even chosen his suit this morning, instead opted for a more casual style. Which was good, he guessed, if he managed to act accordingly, but he had been under so much stress lately, he was afraid he had forgotten how to relax properly. Or at all.

He bit back a sigh, briefly closing his eyes, before looking at his friend who wasn't standing far from him.

She caught his gaze and smiled, the gesture supposed to be encouraging. Eggsy returned it without feeling any different, as much as he wanted to.

It was … not good. It was definitely not good.

He focused on calming himself first, continuing to take deep breaths even though the air was stinging in his lungs and he was sure he was spontaneously going to freeze solid from the inside out.

Right. Right. So, he could do this, he was going to do this. There had been much worse. (He remembered one particular dinner with the royal family of Sweden when he had neither been fluent in Swedish nor particular well-versed in interactions with nobility; he was sure Merlin and Roxy had lost about ten years each of their lifespan trying to manoeuvrer him through it.)

So. Yeah. He'd manage this too.

He shoved his hands deeper into the pockets of his jacket, trying to ward off the cold, then turning around to the other two people they had dragged along.

They weren't standing that far from him either, just enough distance between them that they wouldn't hear what he said if he talked to Roxy.

On a first glance, he might had thought they were just some strangers coincidentally standing next to each other on the pavement – Darja in her leather jacket and fingerless gloves and Merlin in his coat and suit –, but on a second, more detailed glance, he could pick out the small things giving them away: she had shifted her weight to her right leg, leaning towards him, and Merlin had done something similar.

Currently, Darja was digging through the pockets of her jacket until she found the cigarettes, putting one between her lips, going on to light it, pretending not to notice Merlin's gaze on her.

Eggsy, on the other hand, exchanged a short glance with Roxy who was frowning in confusion, as if she was trying to work out something but he didn't have the slightest idea what it could be.

He'd ask her later, sure, since right now didn't seem like the best time to do that and if she had figured it out, she'd tell him. Depending on what it was and whether she wanted to talk with someone else about it first.

He swallowed, going back to looking for words; now was a good moment to say something. What though? He didn't know. None of the words seemed right and even if he thought he had found a suitable one, it wouldn't leave his mouth, he couldn't speak – he always stopped himself and considered it again and then stayed silent.

It was strange, he usually didn't have that much problems.

"You all right?" Roxy asked quietly. He turned around to look at her, for a second too stunned to reply because … well, yeah, he hadn't been expecting it, he hadn't even thought of it. It was obvious though, she worried about him. Naturally. And he wasn't blaming her, of course, it was simply … he didn't know. There were a thousand things on his mind and he couldn't keep up with one of them.

"Yeah," he told her and smiled. "Don't worry." She was worrying anyway, he knew, but there was nothing more to it than being nervous and being nervous was something he could deal with, he just needed … some more time, he guessed. Just a few more moments and maybe a few better braincells.

Okay, so, maybe he also needed a good friend next to him, but he had one, right here, so he was back on working on the other two steps which wasn't going well for him. He was just thinking and thinking and probably overthinking it, knowing that it was bad and that it wasn't helping him one bit.

All the times he had considered his plan, he had never truly believed he'd get this far – he hadn't thought Merlin would agree but now he had and … it was so strange seeing him out of his office after everything that had happened. It wasn't what kept him from just talking.

He respected him, all right, Merlin was a person of authority and a friend, even if he had trouble expressing that, but at the same time, he was someone Eggsy hadn't fully understood yet, he could never tell whether he was approving of something or what he was thinking. He had no idea how to approach him most of the time.

Darja, being really not that different in that regard, wasn't helping. She seemed on their side, yet she was about just as unpredictable.

It wasn't a good thing, really, he was just standing there and trying his best and trying to manage this situation that wasn't so bad, not exactly, he was just nervous and a bit helpless and probably overdoing it to the point where he wanted to do everything _right_ that he got so scared of fucking it up that he didn't manage to do anything in the first place.

So he took a deep breath and shook his head, turning to look at his friend.

"I have no idea," he admitted to her, his words lost in the buzz of the city around them.

"Honestly?" she asked in the same, quiet voice. "Neither." She sighed, her gaze drifting back to the two people in question who were pretending to be busy with something else. At least Darja was.

"I've still got this strange feeling," he told he after a moment. "That this ain't a good idea but I couldn't tell you why."

"Yes," she replied. "I think Merlin isn't entirely convinced. Maybe that's what makes you so uneasy?"

"Maybe," he said with a shrug, looking at the agent again and now he saw it, the tension in his shoulders, the way he worked his jaw – there was definitely something on his mind he wasn't telling them and it wasn't a good thing.

It was … odd and he would have liked to just shake off the feeling, but he couldn't, it was sitting deep beneath his skin, creeping up his spine and neck.

Eggsy swallowed, then running a hand through his hair, still looking for words but they were so impossible to find; this city had always given him some sort of comfort, some sort of security, because he knew it like the back of his hand. Now he wasn't much more than just another stranger.

Okay, he was definitely overdoing it by now, he swore he never had thought that much about a bunch of letters before. They weren't going to burn him or hurt him or stuff, yeah, but he was afraid of rejection and he figured, Merlin would reject pretty much anything he'd suggest. It wasn't fair to think that, he knew, yet … there wasn't really anything he could do about it.

"Well," he said then, she looked at him, brows knitted together. "Maybe I should stop thinking so much about it."

"You don't have to force yourself to do something you're not comfortable with," she told him, studying him for a moment longer.

It was making hum speechless for a whole other reason – she cared so much for him and he still wasn't quite used to people doing that. Which wasn't fair either, because he _knew_ there were a lot of people who genuinely, deeply cared about him, but he had never really been aware of it until it had hit him right in the face. Like right now.

"I know," he replied and mustered a smile. "Thanks, Rox."

She returned it.

They stood there for a moment longer where he filled his lungs with cold, early morning air that stung on its way down his throat – his head cleared up, he felt a bit less tired. The words still didn't suddenly come to him.

He had to improvise then.

One more time, he glanced at Roxy and they shared a short look before nodding at each other as if they both needed one last chance to brace themselves.

Then, Eggsy slowly set a foot in front of the other, walking towards the other part of their group, drawing their attention; there was a small voice in the back of his head telling him to go back or get out of here, but he didn't listen to it, swallowed down these thoughts instead and pushed on. That's what he had to do now.

"What is it?" Merlin asked when he didn't speak.

"Well," Eggsy said, swallowing, hesitating, his head had went blank again as if he never ever before thought something. "Uh, so, since we're here already, we could, maybe, do stuff."

Darja arched her eyebrows at him, bringing the cigarette closer to her mouth to take another drag, but she stayed silent – for now, he guessed, he was still expecting some sort of comment from her, just something. Anything.

"As in," he went on with a quick breath and in a rush of words before he could forget the idea, before it could slip him and he was stranded again in a wordless place. "Maybe go and grab something to eat."

Merlin nodded gradually, Darja was still just watching him and if he wasn't entirely mistaken, she seemed amused. He didn't know what was supposed to be amusing about this.

There was another moment of silence where he bit his lip, chewing on the inside of his cheek.

"Anything else?" the hitman asked then, a moment later than he would have expected her to. Her expression was serious now.

Eggsy looked at her, he had spontaneously forgotten about all the words again; he was stranded for a second time, running out of time for an answer, and it made him panic a little. Seriously, he was just way too quickly too overwhelmed with pretty much everything right now.

"We thought," Roxy cut in, saving him, since he didn't think he would have managed to reply in time without anyone wondering how he was doing. "That it could be a good idea to split up."

Merlin's frown deepened, he was clearly sceptical about it; the amusement returned to Darja's face.

Eggsy still had no idea what there was to be amused about, but he sure as hell wasn't going to ask her, she already looked like she had way too much fun – not that he was thinking she was making fun of him, no, that wasn't it, it was more like … he didn't know. He didn't want to come up with a metaphor for it.

Silence.

The agent seemed tense, apparently mulling over words on his own, nearly as if he wanted to say something but didn't know how to.

Darja, who had been about to take another drag from her cigarette, lowered her hand as she watched him.

"Don't you think you worry too much?" she asked then, just … normally asking, instead of being sarcastic or putting Merlin on the defences, she was really just … asking. There was a new tone to her voice, a soft one, even the arch of her brows seemed softer than it had before and he didn't know what he was seeing, he wasn't even sure he was seeing anything; those were genuine emotions. It had been a while since he had seen any of those so close up.

Merlin looked at her, his frown smoothed a little – not much, just a little; there was this sense of familiarity, it was … it was new and intimate but this time around, he wasn't feeling like an intruder.

"Perhaps," Merlin said then with a sigh, appearing at least ten years older from all the worrying and all the tension he was carrying around.

"I'm not going to kill anyone," she noted, her eyebrows raised further, something tugging at the corners of her mouth. "Unless someone tried to kill me first, that is."

It didn't quite reach Merlin; there was simply a single huff as if he found nothing funny about it – Eggsy didn't either, but he had figured, it was just her way of trying to cheer him up. Somehow. Kind of. It was pretty obvious by now that she was a bit shit at comforting people.

"The world isn't going to end," she went on after a moment, taking another drag of her cigarette. "Even if it does, I'm sure we're all capable of surviving."

It was strange hearing her say stuff like that and he wasn't only thinking that because she had tried killing them, but because she didn't know them. She didn't know what they all had been through and which odds they had been up against, and yet, she sounded so convinced … It seemed more like it was supposed to be Merlin's text, not hers – who was she anyway? He felt like he didn't know at all.

"I suppose," Merlin replied with a sigh and a shake of his head, not taking his eyes of her until a couple of moments after. The tension hadn't fully vanished, Darja's gaze was glued to his shoulders, there was another kind of unspoken agreement between them, another kind of trust, another way of … being close to each other in ways Eggsy had no words for.

Slowly, he drew in another breath, exchanging a glance with Roxy. She nodded.

The silence lasted for a few moment longer before they parted; Merlin and he stood on the pavement.

He had been prepared for simply awkward. This … was different: the silence was heavy, like a wall between them, there were so many things he wanted to say but none ever made it out, he just honestly didn't know how to act around him.

"So," he said then, drawing Merlin's attention. "Where do you want to go?"

The agent looked at him for a moment, studying him, as if he wasn't quite sure what to do and, honestly? Neither was Eggsy.

Working together was one thing, private matters were another, and he had only known the other man in a very professional way until now – maybe that realization was making it even harder to communicate.

"I'm not sure," the other agent said, the statement surprising, because Eggsy would have thought that man had at least a rough idea of what he wanted at every time of the day.

"All right," he said with a shrug of his shoulders, managing a smile. "Then we'll find something." Optimism was more like him, it felt right, and though Merlin was still looking at him as if he still understood nothing about him, he wasn't worried. That much. Finding a place to eat was the easiest thing to do, especially now that he didn't have to worry about the money any longer – he still wasn't into posh places and he wasn't into that skyrocketing the prices did the closer they got to the core of the city, but it was all right.

"Well," he uttered and took a step forward, already going through every kind of location he knew in this city, trying to find something suitable, even though he had no genuine idea what he meant with 'suitable'.

Somewhere to eat, somewhere to be out of the cold – a small coffee shop or something similar would be the best, he guessed, and he hoped, those weren't too hard to find. Just a small, peaceful place without lots of people where they could maybe stay for a while without feeling the need to get up again.

They walked slowly but steadily next to each other, silently; Eggsy kept his eyes open for anything that looked like the vague idea he had in mind, ending up finding some kind of café that seemed nice enough, glancing at the agent who simply lifted his shoulders an inch to the tiniest shrug he had ever seen.

So they entered, warmth and quiet music he didn't understand welcoming them; since the ground storey was full, they moved up one floor where they found a table close to a window from which they could view the people outside, moving under them along with the traffic.

Eggsy took off his jacket, Merlin took off his coat, both of them individually browsed through the menu, still without any word between them; it was so very unreal that he had to check if he hadn't spontaneously turned deaf.

"What is this about anyway?" Merlin asked then casually – at least he was trying to be, but there was tension in his voice and that expression in his eyes and that small frown on his face when he looked at him.

He probably had been suspecting something the whole time. Eggsy would have been surprised if he hadn't and yet, he genuinely didn't know how to tell him that Roxy and he worried about him since he was so sure Merlin was just going to dismiss it; he didn't know how to tell him how he felt about Darja and this thing – whatever it was – going on between them.

For now, he was saved from answering by a waitress approaching them and taking their orders; Eggsy managed to give her a slight smile, slipping back into his usual demeanour when talking – then there was only silence before she set their drinks in front of them.

Merlin's frown had gotten deeper and he now awkwardly cleared his throat.

"Uh," he muttered, lowering his gaze to the cup of tea in front of him, not sure where to start – but he had already started, somehow, so he just had to keep going from here, right? The words coming out of his mouth would end up making sense somehow, right?

"So," he continued, briefly glancing up to make sure the other agent was listening. "Rox and I talked and we came to the conclusion that we … worried." Merlin didn't seem like he wanted to say something; in fact, he wasn't even sure the expression on his face had changed the tiniest bit.

"You've been working pretty hard lately," Eggsy said, having the distant feeling, he was just making it all worse with every word he spoke. "And pretty long and that's not exactly healthy, and that's one thing we're worrying about, but there's another: we've been wondering why you're suddenly getting along so well with Darja."

The agent slowly nodded; heat flushed in his throat and there was a sudden burst of words he wanted to get out to make sure the other man wasn't taking it the wrong way, because he certainly could, he hadn't been clear on his intentions or what he actually meant, but he couldn't move.

"I see," Merlin said then, all calm and collected.

Slowly, Eggsy drew in another breath, holding it in his lungs before releasing it piece by piece, trying to be as silently as possible as he waited for him to continue.

"I understand your worry," Merlin went on after having cleared his throat, appearing a bit uneasy himself now; it was showing in his choice of words and in his tone of voice. "But I assure you, there is no reason for concern."

Eggsy drew his eyebrows together in question; he wasn't just suddenly going to stop worrying just because someone assured him it was all right. Seriously though, it wasn't as easy as that and he didn't know how to tell him – he was talking to a grown man twice his age and yet he didn't think anyone had ever bothered to each Merlin the essentials of befriending other people.

"I mean it," he continued, his voice sounding a bit softer, the tension vanishing from his shoulders.

It wasn't like he wasn't believing him, no, he believed him, alright, but he couldn't shake the concern so easily; Eggsy wanted to believe that the two of them were genuine but change usually didn't come that quickly or in that amount and he … he didn't know, he guessed he needed something tangible, some kind of explanation – not every detail, just some reason, just something.

"I know," he said then, careful with his words. "I believe you mean it, Merlin, and I don't think neither you nor Darja have been trying to make us worry, but … it just looks weird, you know? First, I'm thinking you're one step away from being at each others throats and then, all of a sudden, you act as if you've known each other for years and it doesn't make sense."

For a moment, the he looked at him, studying him like he hadn't before – and perhaps he had been a bit unfair earlier, Merlin always considered what effect his words and actions had on others, yeah, but he never quite seemed to catch on to that people could genuinely cared about him.

The agent swallowed seeming uncomfortable; Eggsy didn't have a good feeling about what he was going to tell him next.

"At one point," he began. "There was the realisation that-" he was looking for words, frowning when he didn't find them- "we are not as different as we assumed we were. Our dislike did not … help achieving the goal each of us had."

Eggsy just nodded, taking a sip from his cup of tea, sorting his thoughts – it was an explanation, alright, he hadn't been asking for the whole truth, if anyone wanted confess it to him, they would. Honestly, he couldn't see a lot of similarities between Darja and Merlin, but he had never really looked for any either and as long as they weren't trying to harm each other, it was fine, wasn't it?

Didn't mean he was suddenly less, well, afraid of her, maybe it had to do with how good she was at fighting or the way she smiled or the way she looked, sharp and dangerous, like a killer. And, yeah, she was, but at the same time, he had to think of a wild animal, pressed up with its back against a wall and lashing out at anyone who came too close. And, apparently, Merlin had said something at some point that had made her not lash out at him … or anyone, which was great, because he wasn't constantly fearing for anyone's life any longer, but that metaphor wasn't really working out; they were equals, in more than one way – maybe not physically; Eggsy was sure she could kick all of their arses.

"I get it," he said then with another nod. "I guess."

Merlin frowned.

"I mean," he went on. "I think I understand where all of it is coming from and that's calming to know."

"I see," Merlin said with a smile of his own, raising his cup to take the first sip.

It shattered right in his hand.


	18. Chapter 18: A Question of Trust

Against what she had thought up until now and despite all the things she told herself, she had doubts. Unexpectedly so, she didn't know what had changed her mind in the matter of a second – this strange feeling just had been _there_ , bitter in her throat and burning on her tongue.

It wasn't fear though. She wasn't afraid of being somewhere with Darja; if she had been, she would have never agreed to doing this, and yet there was something sinking her stomach, something making her uneasy, something throwing her off. Perhaps it was nervousness, perhaps it was truly as easy as that, perhaps she was already worrying about how to ask this question she had to ask eventually.

Slowly, Roxy drew in a breath, keeping it in her lungs before releasing it, steadily pushing it out of her body, shoving her hands into the pockets of her coat as they went on, making their way right through the crowds on the pavement.

Walking next to the hitman was … an experience, so to speak; for the most part, it was surreal in a way she could barely explain. Darja was confident, she was pretty, she should be attracting attention by any means – by her sharp cheekbones and alert eyes, dressed for a riot – but she slipped right through the people, right under the gaze of anyone who would have interest in her like she was a ghost with no solid form, nothing more than a gush of wind.

Surely, Roxy had figured, someone like her needed the ability to blend in so perfectly that no one noticed them, no matter their physical features. As a Kingsman, she had to do the same. But the longer she looked at her, the less she understood how it was possible; her facial features were so unique, she could be identified within a heartbeat, she rather looked like a model on the cover of a magazine and billboards. That image felt wrong; Darja fit as much on a runway as Roxy did herself, and perhaps that was the reason she had been so quickly inclined to trust her.

It might had been a bad idea. Simply because there weren't many women in the service like her, right at the front lines, didn't mean they were trustworthy. It only meant they were both woman in a line of work dominated by men who didn't like them intruding, to put it lightly. (She was aware that not all of the other agents appreciated her presence. Her skills and achievements didn't matter. She could save the world and all of Kingsman with her hands tied behind her back and a blindfold on and they would still insist she wasn't good enough.)

Sighing, she glanced at the sky above when the wind picked up, drawing her coat closer around her and combing strings of hair behind her ear.

There was no need for words at the moment, Roxy didn't have anything on her mind and Darja seemed like the type who would say something, if she thought something needed to be said. It was her usual way of approaching things, she rarely found silence unpleasant, perhaps awkward at worst, but currently, she couldn't ease up, she couldn't quite relax even though she had no reason to be this tense.

From time to time, she looked to her right to make sure they hadn't gotten separated in the crowd. It appeared, they were both doing that.

She didn't know how it made her feel, it was a strange emotion to begin with, bubbling up from deep in her belly, rendering her incapable of thinking further than one word at a time with no correlation between them. Not that she needed to be watched out for, she had grown up around here, she wouldn't get lost so easily. It was rather … that Darja seemed to care, for what reason that might be in the end, she couldn't come up with one, and it further confirmed the trust she placed in the other woman.

Gradually, she lowered her gaze back to the ground beneath her feet and drew in another breath, pulling it into her lungs before pushing it out again, molecule for molecule, as they continued their way, silent against the buzz of the city around them, the cars and the music and the conversations, the clattering of shoes and the ragged breaths, the shifting of clothes. They existed far away from that for the moment being.

Roxy still didn't know how to handle the situation, if she was supposed to handle it; perhaps it was best to wait and see. This was no mission that needed a plan, yet she treated a lot of things as if they needed one to work out since it made her feel more at ease, giving her some sort of comfort.

For now, she looked around, trying to figure out where they were without using the GPS feature of her classes. While she might had grown up here, she didn't know every corner and every street of London, the city was way too gigantic for that, and she had never exactly liked the centre of it anyway, it was too much in any regard. (She had fallen in love with her family's manor as a young child and she had never grown out of it, perhaps that was why.)

Carefully, she drew in the next breath, returning her attention on finding a way through the endless masses of people without colliding with anyone.

The next time she glanced to her right, expecting the other woman to be there, she didn't see her. Her heart was in her throat, she nearly stopped, the momentum of the people behind her would have tripped her over, but then she saw her, still next to her, as easy to overlook as any other, ordinary person would be.

She shook her head, averting her gaze again, hoping Darja hadn't noticed the second of panic, but she was like Merlin in that regard, there was next to nothing she didn't see – especially those things one hoped no one else had noticed, especially those these two saw and it would have made her uncomfortable, if she hadn't been used to it. Still, it was an odd sensation, being read like an open book when she had tried to hide her emotions her whole life. Not that she hadn't gotten any worse at that, no, Merlin and Darja were simply special people, people with a lot of experience and a good eye. Eventually, she would end up developing this skill as well, as the years in the service went on.

"So," the woman next to her said after a while, audibly inhaling the cold air; Roxy expected to see her with another cigarette. There was none, she had shoved her hands into the pockets of her leather jacket. "What do we do now?" She looked at her, no trace of anger or malice or anything else like that on her face, just plainly … nothing. No bad emotion, no good one, and for a moment, she considered the slight tremble at the end of the question, the possibility that deep down, Darja was insecure too.

She slowed down her steps and they came to a stop in a quiet place, still on the pavement, close to the wall of a shop, behind them a large store window where clothes were at display. She combed some strings of her hair out of her face. It didn't change the fact that she didn't know what to tell her.

It had left her surprised for a moment, possibly overwhelmed with the task alone.

There were … there had been a couple of places to go to on her mind earlier.

She swallowed, digging her hands deeper into the pockets of her coat as she searched for words.

Darja arched her eyebrows at her, waiting; people had never made her so uneasy she couldn't say anything, no matter how careful she might was with her words to begin with.

"Everything alright?" the hitman asked then, the question surprising her even more.

"Yes," she said and nodded, dragging in another breath as she studied the woman, trying to regain composure.

Her heart stuttered in her chest from nervousness, she didn't know what to do, she didn't know if there was anything to do, she was … probably thinking too much and thus making everything worse than it actually was.

"Perhaps we could go somewhere nice and eat something?" she suggested, Darja's gaze lingering on her before she nodded and mustered a smile, something nearly shy about her, as if she didn't know how to act herself.

"Do you know a good place?" Darja asked.

She thought for a moment, nodded, and then they set into motion again, through the city, through the crowds on the pavement, until they entered a small coffee shop and sat down at the window, taking off their jackets and coats.

The other patrons around them talked quietly, yet loud enough that any conversation would be lost to the noise surrounding them, which was a good thing, considering the nature of the conversation they would have.

They ordered, sitting there in silence, keeping themselves busy with looking around, until a waitress placed their food and cups in front of them.

At first, there was more silence to follow. The hitman didn't seem to have any need to hurry nor any need to speak any time soon as if it suddenly didn't bother her anymore whether or not someone was engaging with her.

It was strange, Roxy had expected the opposite, but perhaps that had to do with the change that had been happening with the woman who was sitting across from her – she was calmer now, more controlled in a way that didn't mean hiding away any emotion, grounded; she had both feet on the floor and her sights set on a goal and there was nothing that could stop her from achieving it.

Slowly, she took a sip of her tea, then went on to work on her food. She guessed, at some point, it would be getting easier to speak, it was even possible that she would find words without having to question them over and over again. It didn't happen.

She got the impression Darja was waiting for something as if she had it all already figured out and put together, only waiting for the one question that would confirm her theories. At the same time though she, apparently, had no intentions of making her uncomfortable, so she didn't say anything at all.

"Can I ask you something?" Roxy questioned after a while, looking up from her cup of tea, catching the other woman's gaze.

"I figured that was the whole point of it," she said with a small arch of her eyebrow – a simple, soft gesture – and stopped swirling her cocoa. "So, yeah, you can."

"How old are you, exactly?" It had been the first thing on her mind and it slipped her before she had considered; she should have. She regretted asking.

Darja tensed, taken by surprise for a split second.

"Twenty-five," she answered quietly.

"I thought you were older", she admitted after a moment of hesitation, looking at her with an apologetic smile.

The hitman shrugged, it didn't appear to be her favourite topic; Roxy didn't blame her, she assumed, she had been through a lot and thus, remembering wasn't good.

She really shouldn't have asked that, it … it didn't feel right, there was something twisting her gut and she figured, it had to do with the way the other woman avoided eye-contact for a second and how her voice had been about to give in.

Biting her lip, she thought about apologizing. There was no issue finding words for that, a lady knew how to apologize properly, yet, no apology seemed good enough for the cause, there was more to it than bad memories.

So, instead, she thought about what to say next, a better question, but she was careful now, extra careful, and everything she came up with seemed wrong, she didn't want to cause any more harm.

She didn't want to ask about her past or why she had become a hitman, she didn't want to ask about Russia or all the things she had seen, she didn't want to ask for her dearest memory or if there was someone waiting for her. She didn't want to ask where she had learnt to fight like that or where her sharpness came from, she didn't want to ask about superficial things, she didn't want to ask about things that mattered little, but what else was there?

There was another question, yes, a question she had wanted to save for the very end. Asking it now seemed too early, it seemed too insensitive after having already touched upon an unpleasant topic.

Slowly, Roxy drew in a breath, weighting her options against each other.

In all honesty, she didn't even have the slightest idea what to do, the more she thought about it, the worse her idea appeared to her.

Forcing back a sigh, she lowered her gaze to the plate in front of her, but eating was as impossible as speaking to her, there was no way she would manage to swallow down a single bite of it, no matter how tasty it was.

When she looked back up, she caught Darja's gaze; she hadn't said a word, simply studied her and waited. There was tension to her in a way she hadn't seen before, she wasn't holding it in her shoulders or jaw or hands but she tried so hard to keep her posture relaxed and neutral.

She took in a deep breath.

"There is something else," Roxy said and the other woman hummed in response, leaning forward an inch.

"Go ahead," she replied after a moment when she didn't continue.

"Right," Roxy muttered, swallowing, since she didn't have any clue how to do this. "I have been wondering about something with Eggsy for a while now. And … we've been thinking."

The hitman nodded.

Suddenly, the words weighted a ton each.

"And," she continued, drawing in another breath. "We came to the conclusion that there is something we need to know – what exactly is your relation with Merlin?"

This time, she didn't look surprised. She set down her cup, the expression on her face hadn't changed, though there was something new to it, genuine and honest, _personal_ , something that was next to impossible to put into words.

"I'm not sure," Darja admitted then.

Roxy wouldn't have thought she would, she had expected her to be like Merlin in that way too: admitting not to know something for sure was a weakness and being weak was bad.

"What do you mean, you're not sure?"

"I don't know," Darja said with a shrug, shifting in her seat. "It's … it's just weird. I forgot that it happens – that relations to other people can just be weird sometimes."

Personally, she didn't think it was as weird as the two of them were making it, in fact, she thought that it would be easier if both of them would be better at handling their emotions.

"I see," she said and nodded, returning her attention to the tea in front of her, gradually taking another sip, cautious not to burn her tongue in the process, aware of the eyes watching her, waiting for her to continue, but she didn't have anything else to say. She understood. She did, there was nothing more about it.

After a moment, she lowered her cup and folded her hands, raising her gaze to meet Darja's.

"I didn't expect you to explain it all to me," she said softly. "You don't have to. It's not about the kind of relation you have, I just wanted to be sure you're no longer planning to kill any of us as you originally did. And, I think, I can tell that you no longer have ill intentions like that."

"Can you?" she asked, drawing up her sarcasm like a last line of defence between them.

Roxy understood that some people didn't want to be vulnerable, especially if they were like Darja, if they _couldn't_ be vulnerable, but she still didn't like it. She hadn't liked the arrogant, self-absorbed version of her she had pretended to be either.

"Yes," she answered, not even blinking. She was sure enough, it was just an act to make her doubt, because, apparently, for what reason whatsoever, dealing with people who doubted her was easier to her.

"If you wanted to lie about it, you would have done it earlier," she added then. "It's a bit obvious like that."

The other woman simply smiled and lifted her shoulders to a shrug, slipping back into that casual, genuine way. "You've caught me."

It didn't quite make sense, perhaps it had meant to be a test to see how serious she was about this after all, perhaps it had been an instinctive reaction, perhaps … she didn't know.

"It's nothing to be ashamed of," Roxy said after a moment, although she didn't get the impression that Darja was particularly _ashamed_ , rather … something else, something she couldn't quite pinpoint, something she couldn't put into words no matter how hard she was trying to find any that fit.

"Maybe," the hitman replied, quietly, as if she was hoping the world would get drowned out by the noise surrounding them.

She heard her anyway. And … there was this caution about her, still, despite the fact that she had given up on that mask; it seemed like a topic she shouldn't ask about, because it was bordering on vulnerability and no one liked being vulnerable, did they?

"Did I … say something wrong?" The question didn't seem right out of her mouth, perhaps she should have asked something else instead, but she couldn't take it back now.

Darja looked up, studying her for a moment with her eyebrows drawing together sceptically. "No," she said. "There's just something I've been trying to figure out for a while now." She drummed her fingers against the polished surface of the table.

"May I ask what?" Roxy questioned, swallowing down that feeling of intruding somewhere she shouldn't be. If she truly crossed any borders, the other woman would tell her, yet the anticipation tasted sour on her tongue.

"There's this person I'm owing something," the hitman replied, her gaze went right through her as if she wasn't even there. "And I don't know how to pay him back."

"It's not about money," she guessed, because money seemed to be the last of her issues.

"I wish it was," Darja muttered, blinking, she looked at her. "No, he saved my life and there's no way I can ever do the same in return, so I don't know how to repay him for all he's done to me."

She got a feeling this wasn't about just a favour, similar to those Merlin called from people around the world Roxy hadn't known had previously existed until he spoke of them – it was something else entirely and it had the hairs on her neck stand up; not that she thought it was anything immoral or traumatizing, it was … it was just an idea. An idea that made her sick.

"Is that how you became a hitman?"

Darja shook her head with a fleeing smile, the thought seemed to amuse her or remind her of something she considered amusing. "No, I chose to be a hitman."

She didn't understand her any better, it was just – what kind of debt was she owing this person? And why was it bothering her so much? Surely, she could keep asking, but she didn't want to, it was too much of a personal topic for that and she feared she would end up doing something wrong.

So she simply nodded and returned her attention to her tea and food, slowly emptying her cup and plate. She wasn't feeling sick this time, no, and therefore, she got to enjoy the taste, even though her mind was still racing with so many theories and puzzle pieces she couldn't put together.

After a moment, she slipped into listening to the noise around her, observing her surroundings without looking. It was a skill she had learned quickly to evaluate a situation, whenever there was a moment of quiet.

There was a pair of steps that was out of place: quick, determined, there was just something about it that made her suspicious, her instincts as an agent kicked in and she wanted to see who they belonged to. She swallowed it down and kept her head low, there was another kind of instinct telling her it was better that way.

Roxy returned her attention to her cup, taking a small sip of tea while she glanced at the woman sitting across from her who appeared unbothered.

The steps headed for their table, no one seemed to mind or to want to pay attention; none of the conversations around them stopped, even though it felt like they should, her heart skipped a beat in her chest, adrenaline pumped through her veins with such an intensity it made her dizzy, she expected the worst.

That moment alone was preparation enough so she didn't flinch when a man sat down at their table; Darja tensed, she hoped she wasn't reaching for any of the weapons she carried by reflex. It could get someone in trouble here in the UK, where there was no second amendment.

The man was a couple of years older than both of them, possibly in his thirties, with red hair and freckles and a firm look on his face that was familiar to her, like she had seen it before somewhere.

He wore a coat and a shirt, despite his rough appearances there was something to him that made her think he belonged to the police force. That was when she remembered. He had been on television recently, Joshua Chromwell, she hadn't liked him back then. Now, up close, she didn't like him either.

She swallowed.

"You aren't invited," Darja told him, the accent nearly completely drained from her voice, she sounded angry – and it was all an act, she knew what to look for; Darja was playing another role, pretending to be someone else. Considering the footage from the surveillance camera, her acting skills were surely needed. Anyone with a good eye could put two and two together and, therefore, recognize her as the woman from the video and, apparently, this Chromwell was immune to overlooking her.

"I am aware," he said, having no sense or use for being polite, which made her dislike him only further. Whatever his job exactly was and whatever he thought he was doing for the law, there was something about him that made her uneasy in his presence.

"So why are you still here?" she asked, not sitting any differently than before yet radiating confidence.

"I have cause to believe that you are a witness crucially needed to solve a case," he replied.

A chill ran down her spine, he was dangerous, he could be an even more dangerous enemy; they had to get rid of him, somehow make him believe that he was wrong or somehow make sure he wasn't going to make a fuss about it – she had a feeling it wouldn't be the last time they ran into him, and that would be a problem.

"I think you're mistaken," Darja told him, a cold tone in her voice.

"I'm sure," the detective pressed, he was getting impatient. "Have you seen the video they're broadcasting?"

"No," Darja answered. "And I don't have to see it, because around the time it was made, I wasn't even in this country yet." She sounded genuinely upset.

Roxy would have gotten fooled herself – she was good, good enough to make her doubt a little, because people with that kind of skills could basically do anything and she'd believe them, even if she should know better by now and it made her skin crawl, but … she figured there was more to it, she had figured she could truly believe this woman and there were few things that could shake her trust once she placed it.

The detective blinked.

"This is a matter of national security," he hissed, forcing himself to be quiet.

"I've been telling you the truth the whole time," Darja replied with a glare, a low growl in her voice as if she was offended.

He didn't reply right away, perhaps contemplating his next words; the hitman used that moment.

"If there's nothing else you want to get off your chest, you should probably leave," she told him with another glare; he bit back a reply and actually left.

"I don't think we should stick around much longer," the other woman remarked after a moment of silence, casting a glance around them.

"Yeah," she muttered, a strange feeling sitting in her stomach.

They quickly finished their food in silence, paid, and eventually left, exiting the building and passing by parked vehicles.

Darja pulled her down to her knees the second before she heard the shot, the car window next to her shattering into a million pieces.


	19. Chapter 19: Assault

The broken glass on the pavement cut into her palms.

Her pulse sped up, blood rushing in her ears; then she got calm. Controlled. She had been in so many dangerous, life-threatening situations before. This was no different. Then she reached for her gun and her fingers closed around air; she wasn't wearing her suit and she wasn't carrying any weapons. Panic, seething hot, collected in the back of her throat until she wanted to puke.

Her ears rang from the screaming and crying around her, the fear was contagious, it was making her dizzy.

Why were people shooting? Was this – a terrorist attack? There had been a few in the chaos Valentine had left, yes, and she had been involved in taking care of them so that they never exited the planning stage, but this here was different.

She checked for injuries, found none, except for the scratches on her hands, before she slowly sat up, breathing in deeply and steadily, looking to her left.

Darja was already back on her feet, pulling a gun from beneath her leather jacket while scanning her surroundings, her face like stone. She was terrifying like that, a force she didn't want to mess with; the words Roxy had wanted to say died at the tip of her tongue.

 _Boom_. Maybe a bomb going off in the distance or beneath her feet, loud enough to deafen her, causing her to keep close to the ground.

Windowpanes shattered, more screaming, the building next to her shook from the force, threatening to crumble down any second.

The hitman struggled to keep her balance.

Smoke crept towards them from under the car they were crouching behind, thick black walls of fog swallowing their surroundings – she covered her nose and mouth with the sleeve of her coat just in case of it being poisoned or something else.

Slowly, she let out a breath she hadn't known she had been holding, trying to orientate herself, trying to come up with something to do, but she was out of options. She felt so incredibly helpless and so incredibly stupid – she had been trained for these scenarios, she remembered all of it, but she couldn't help the fright settling in her chest and stomach, she couldn't help cursing herself for not being prepared _enough_.

She tapped the frame of her glasses to turn on the infrared sight. Something was interfering with it, leaving her only her eyesight to rely on.

The other woman was just a silhouette now, even though she could only be a couple of feet away from her; perhaps it wasn't even Darja.

"Fuck." That was her voice, Roxy could tell that much.

She swallowed and got up, expecting another shot to ring through the air, too close to be a simple coincidence – nothing happened. Suspiciously so.

Then she held her breath to listen, chaos and mayhem all around her. Alarms, cries, running. Her ears were still tingling, hopefully it was only a temporary issues.

Everywhere she turned, she saw _something_. Shadows, formless figures that could have spawned right out of a horror film. Usually, she didn't mind them, but she figured, she'd change her opinion after getting out of this.

When she looked around again, Darja had vanished. Possibly, the smoke was also thicker than she had thought, she didn't know, she just knew she wasn't going to give her position away by calling, so, for the moment, she stayed where she was and calmed herself.

Everything was going to be fine.

Cautiously, she stepped forward, the glass crunching beneath her feet, causing her to stop and listen. Nothing new. Nothing that could help her.

Maybe there wasn't going to be anything because they weren't the primary targets for whatever this was, but … she didn't think that was true. There was no telling for sure, of course, yet, if these people simply wanted to cause damage, they would have already done that, no need for smoke.

A shot. A dull thud followed. Like a body dropping to the ground.

She nearly stumbled over something when she made her way around the car. After having regained her balance, she knelt down, inspecting.

There was the body of a man, tall and broad, wearing a bulletproofed vest. He had suffocated on his own blood after being shot through the neck. Maybe Darja had done that, but she hadn't seen her kill before and, as gruesome as the sight was, she did hope it had been the hitman, because, if she hadn't killed this man, someone else had.

Another shot – two. Three, four – six. Hissing, swearing, thuds.

And here she was, barely able to see and incapable of finding her way around, probably even capable of fighting, while the hitman was doing it just like that. If she was fighting, one of these thuds could have been her body and she could be dying right now and Roxy wouldn't know.

She swallowed, forcing these thoughts down her throat even if she was choking on them. There were other things to pay attention to at the moment: her surroundings, the noises, dark chaos.

Steps. They were close.

She whirled around. They stopped.

Still nothing more than silhouettes and shadows, nothing more than what there had been earlier, nothing more she could distinguish from the tricks of her mind. She tried turning on the infrared sensors again, but it wasn't working, her instincts told her to run since she was at disadvantage and there was no way she could win a fight like that under these conditions.

Roxy forced this urge down, taking a step back to watch the smoke again, steadily turning her head from left to right.

Steps. Behind her, this time.

She whirled around.

A hit to her shoulder, heavy enough to make her struggle. Another one to her gut, she was going to be sick.

The next one was aimed to her face and she blocked it with her arm, quickly grabbing the hand of the attacker and twisting it, kicking the person in front of her, smashing her elbow on their head.

Groans. Probably from a man. She placed another punch where she suspected his throat.

He dropped to the floor and she moved closer. This one was also wearing a bulletproofed vest, meaning there had to be a group of them … so she would, probably, encounter more of them.

She put a knee to his chest, shifting most of her weight towards it while she ignore the glare he threw at her, barely breathing; he didn't move though, so she kept her gaze on him as she pulled the gun from the holster at his hip.

Its weight gave her some sense of security.

Silence.

Roxy was sure she had seen something just now, someone, she couldn't shake the feeling of being watched, of having walked into a trap with her eyes wide open – her heart was pounding in her chest. This was wrong. All of this was wrong.

Movement. To her right.

She pulled the trigger on the man in front of her, blood spraying across her face, and she got to her feet, turning right.

They weren't making any sounds. Or perhaps her ears were still damaged or perhaps she wasn't focusing hard enough, the problem was, that she couldn't hear any steps, any noise, _anything_. Her breath hitched in her throat, it made her skin crawl. How was she supposed to fight someone she could neither see or hear? How was she supposed to stand her ground against a pretty much invisible enemy?

Steps. More than one pair this time. Definitely more than one pair.

They didn't speak, they didn't demand anything, they didn't threaten her. They were just black smoke and silence.

One of them kicked her leg from her under. Roxy struggled, gritting her teeth against the pain.

Behind her. She thrust back her elbow, colliding with something hard.

She pulled away. Her leg hurt, she couldn't really stand, walking would be difficult too. Maybe broken or strained; most definitely the last thing she needed right now.

She had to get out of here. Quickly.

The adrenaline kicked in, the pain dulled, she started moving – too slowly, she wasn't getting away fast enough.

She aimed her gun at a shifting shadow. She didn't get to fire it.

Instead, she took a punch to the gut, sending her staggering. Another one hit the back of her head, her feet got swept from under her.

She fell. Her back connected with the ground first, sending a sharp wave of pain through her body; her ribs were aching, she couldn't breathe. She had to, but she couldn't, she felt like she was suffocating-

A gun was loaded.

Suddenly, breathing didn't seem that important any more. Roxy didn't dare moving.

There was no way out now, she was going to die – she was going to die and she was scared of it, deep down she always had been scared, but at the very time … she wasn't. Ever since she joined Kingsman, she had been aware that it was highly likely she could die in her line of work like the previous Lancelot or Harry, but, in all honesty, she didn't want this to be the end. This couldn't be it.

Roxy held the gun close to her chest, fingers tightly put around it – if she could make out where they were, she could shoot them. Assuming they didn't see right through her plan or had any devices that worked despite the disturbances.

"Lancelot," one of them said. He was right in front of her, the cold metal of a barrel pressing against her forget.

Cautiously, she aimed her gun, trying to make no sound but the frantic beating of her heart was threatening to give her away.

A shot went off. She pulled the trigger. Three.

Pain flared up in her shoulder, warmth soaked her clothes. Aside from that, she didn't feel particularly dead.

Around her, people moved, loaded guns, threw punches. Cursed. The sound of splintering bones send a chill down her spine. Thuds. Dead bodies, most likely.

She considered moving, but if she were to get caught up in this fight, her chances wouldn't be exactly the best, the pain was already making it next to impossible to breathe, but she couldn't help feeling useless because of it; she had trained for months for situations like these and yet they had taken her by surprise.

" _Mu'daki_." It was probably an insult, even if she didn't understand the language; it didn't even matter, because she recognized the voice and breathed a sigh of relief.

The other woman appeared in front of her, crouching down. She looked as bad as Roxy felt; there was blood all over her, bruises on her face already turned a deep shade of violet, cuts turns a sickening shade of yellow, but she was still very much alive.

She muttered something under her breath, before tearing off part of her shirt to bandage up her shoulder.

"Can you walk?" she asked then, looking at her, her eyes were pitch-black in the darkness surrounding them and the grim expression on her face made her wonder how serious it truly was.

"I don't think so," she answered, her voice hoarse from the shame in her throat.

"Not your fault," Darja told her and went on to pick her up seemingly effortlessly, just … just lifting her off the ground like she always did that. "We have to get out of here."

Roxy nodded, swallowing. She was uncomfortable, if for the feeling that she had failed being an agent; she had been through enough that she should be walking out of her, but something in her leg had snapped and wouldn't carry her another metre and, perhaps the worst thing about it, it made her feel so incredibly vulnerable. She hated it. She had always hated it, now more than ever when she had something to prove.

Darja's walk quickly turned into a light jog and the smoke lifted, she entered the first alley that showed up, putting her down there to catch her breath.

She had an apology on the top of her tongue, but she swallowed it down for now; she was getting dizzy.

"Oh, great," the hitman muttered, looking at her shoulder. It didn't look that good.

"I'm not going to die," Roxy answered.

"You better don't," Darja just replied.

"Where are we going?" she asked after a moment, the words coming slower to her.

"I don't know," the other woman answered. "Just away from whatever the fuck that was for now."

She nodded, wanting to mention places where they could go, but they vanished from her head when she opened her mouth to speak, all the words were hardly making any sense.

"Rox?" She flinched when she heard Eggsy's voice.

"Yes?" There were still interferences, so she pressed the glasses closer to her face.

"We need your help," he said, in that tone of voice she knew too well, the same one in which he had asked her for a favour nearly two years ago.

"What is going on?"

"There is a sniper," he said. Something shattered in the background. People screamed. Crying. "Shooting at us."

"Where are you?" Her tongue was heavy. Fear ran coldly through her body.

Merlin cut in to tell her the address. "There is a construction side a few-" Another shot. "Streets away. I suppose that's where they are. Can you get there?"

"Yes," she said without a nod, before looking at Darja who arched her eyebrows in question.

"There is a sniper," she said.

"Then let's go," she replied and set her jaw.

* * *

 _Mu'dak_ _i_ – assholes


	20. Chapter 20: Nichego

Snipers were the worst. Seriously, there was nothing worse than a sniper on the enemy's side, since you couldn't see them from down in the streets and they could just shoot you and you wouldn't know until it was too late – so the current situation fucking sucked.

It was like someone was trying their hardest to kill them … except that, if they were _really_ trying, they would already be dead. There were no warning shots, it was just a bullet in your skull, this was all wrong, so very, very wrong she was sick, yet there was no time for getting sick.

Darja had gotten injured a lot. Naturally, considering her nature of work. But getting injured and handling someone else who was injured were two entirely different things and as good as she was at treating the first one, as bad she was at doing something about the latter.

Truth was, she knew shit about first aid. She knew how to pull a bullet from her shoulder or stomach and she knew how to stitch up a larger wound and she knew how to drown out the pain, but on other people? She wasn't taking any risks.

Making sure the girl she carried wasn't going to die was a responsibility she didn't want, she didn't want to be responsible for other people's lives like that.

The blood loss looked bad – Darja couldn't tell how bad, since it soaked her clothes and that could make it seem worse than it was or it could make it seem less worse than it was and there was no way of telling.

"Left," Roxy muttered now, leaning on her shoulder, fighting to keep her eyes open.

"Hey," Darja said and briefly glanced at her; she was about to stumble over her own feet and if she fell, she wouldn't be able to get back up. The adrenaline was wearing off, she grew tired, her whole body just ached, but she couldn't give in yet, there was still something to do. She had to keep going.

"Stay with me," she finished then in lack of better words.

"I'm here," the agent said and blinked. For now, that was.

"Just keep trying to stay awake, alright?" she asked and turned left at the next corner.

The feeling of being useless and powerless seethed into her head, hot and cold at the same time, and she hated it; she wanted to be neither of those things but she couldn't deny her lack of knowledge either. It was a problem. A huge goddamn problem but she tried doing what she always did with things like this: ignoring it.

Her current objective was to find that sniper and, ideally, shoot them. She could worry about everything else after that. Then again, it sounded too easy, she wasn't just going to find them, was she? No, probably not, there had to be a catch to it, something else, some other shit turning this into much more of a mess than it already was.

They ended up in a small alley desperately in need of repairs, like the buildings surrounding it. The dark clouds above their heads lurked, waiting for an opportunity to rain on them.

"Just around the corner," the girl told her now.

Darja cut around the corner, close enough to collide with the wall. She bit back a curse – the pain was bad, especially now when nothing dulled it anymore, but she simply gritted her teeth. Pain was temporary.

She lowered the girl to the ground to inspect a metal door that marked some kind of back entrance. It was locked, obviously, but it didn't seem to be secured in any overly special way. Good for her.

Then she glanced around, making sure no one was in sight or earshot, before she drew her gun from the back of her pants and shot it. The lock sprang open.

Having made sure no one was expecting them at the entrance, she put her weapon back and helped the agent inside, putting her down on the first flight of stairs.

"Hey," she said, Roxy looked at her, trying her best to stay awake but it was getting increasingly difficult for her. "Listen", she went on and knelt down next to her, drawing a knife from inside of her jacket. "You stay here and make sure no one gets inside, alright? And call yourself an ambulance. I'll take care of the sniper."

She nodded in hesitation, as if she wanted to say something.

"Look," Darja told her with a sigh. "I'm sure you can do just as well as I. You just got hurt worse. Don't worry about it, okay? I wouldn't have any doubts you've had this cleared out in no time if it was the other way around."

"Thank you," she said and smiled. "You are nicer than you pretend to be."

"Don't pass out," she told her, swallowing down the thought forcing its way into her consciousness, while climbing up, her gun in her hand. She didn't have time for this. Later. Maybe. If she wanted to.

The first two flights of stairs were easy, she slowed at the top to listen and check her surroundings – no suspicious noise. No steps. No breathing other than her own.

She moved to the next floor, repeating the process, again and again without discovering someone until she reached the last set. There were only a few possible outcomes now: perhaps this sniper had brought backup, if just for the occasion. Honestly, at this point she was inclined to anticipate pretty much everything.

There was another door, probably leading to the roof.

It opened soundlessly.

The first thing she noticed was – silence. As much silence as you could fit in the middle of London, the traffic beneath and the rush of people, a siren shrieking in the distance, voices carrying up as tangled and blurred mess.

There was plenty of room too.

She glanced around, before she stepped outside and narrowed her eyes as she inch by inch secured her surroundings.

Nothing. Just nothing. Just cold air blowing through her clothes and hair, drying the blood on her face.

She wasn't thinking Merlin had sent them to the wrong place, but she still didn't like how it was so completely abandoned.

Darja gritted her teeth and swallowed the frustration along with the desire to hit something – her hands looked bad enough. Also, she didn't need and go break one of her bones. They didn't heal quickly and, further, she couldn't risk any permanent damages here.

Maybe it had been a trap. Maybe it hadn't. She felt played either way, pushed around like some stupid figure on some stupid board; it was making her angry, she was more than that.

Exhaling, she clenched her fists, slowly but forcefully pushing all the tension out of her body until the weight lifted from her shoulders … a bit.

Then she looked around the roof, walking the length of it while searching for … something. Just something, some kind of evidence, any sign that someone had been here before, something indicating she had just missed the sniper.

She squatted down at the edge of the roof; the cartridges were easy to miss in the gray light due to the fact that they were silver, she hadn't really seen a lot of those around since, usually, they were golden, so maybe they proved useful.

It didn't feel like a success though, more like a trap, a set-up. Sure, they belonged to a sniper rifle, if she wasn't entirely mistaken – and she shouldn't be –, but, the thing was, no one in her business left their weapons behind, not even such a thing like cartridges, no matter whether they still had any use or not; it was about not leaving any traces behind.

Darja picked one of them up, her sleeve pulled over her hand, and studied it. No scratch, no special inscription or anything, nothing that would make them easily identifiable. Of course.

With a sigh, she put all of them into the pocket of her jacket and closed it, making sure she hadn't missed anything else.

Sighing, she then shook her head and turned back towards the door she had exited, walking back down. The exhaustion hit her hard enough to make her struggle more than once, her legs threatening to give in on her before she had made it all the way to the bottom.

The girl still sat there, holding onto her knife; she looked as bad as Darja felt.

She lowered herself next to her, gently taking the weapon from her hands and putting it back in the pocket of her jacket.

Roxy looked at her, blinking, asking a question without saying a word.

She didn't want to tell her though, she didn't want to tell her that they had nothing once again; she wanted a solution, an answer, someone to focus all her anger on.

"I didn't find a sniper," she said finally, not even sure whether she was upset or just tired, maybe both, because – they were stuck. They had been stuck since the very beginning. There was no going forward and there was no going back now, there was just … _nothing_.

The agent nodded after a moment, keeping the questions to herself, instead tapping the frame of her glasses that, apparently, were a little more than just glasses, and told whoever was listening … something. She wasn't really paying attention anymore, she wasn't particularly paying attention to anything.

Instead, she thought about what they knew, trying to make a full picture out of it, but it didn't give her any new ideas – the people they were after had been careful enough to wipe all of their traces. Darja had never gone up against someone like that before.

It would have been easier with Jack; he had access to sources and people some secret service could only dream of. Naturally, it would all be illegal and violating a UN convention or two, but it would work and she was ready for something to work out instead of crumbling in front of logic – she felt so incapable of solving her own problems for once, she couldn't help being mad at herself.

The girl next to her fought to stay awake – maybe it was rather the shock than the injury that drained her of her energy, but she was neither a doctor or a psychologist, so she had no idea what the appropriate response to a situation like this was. As a hitman, she had always kept going, for better or worse, simply because she had to; Roxy was some kind of agent, with a life not quite as eventful as Bond's.

"You still with me?" she asked her.

"Yes," she said after a moment, but Darja wasn't sure how well she was actually holding up. Maybe not as well as she pretended to be, she figured; she didn't blame her. Not everyone grew up around hitmen.

"Does it hurt badly?" she went on to ask, fully aware of how much bullshit it was, but she wanted to say something and she didn't know any better – speaking about the countless times she had pulled bullets from her own body and stitched her wounds wouldn't comfort her, that much was for sure.

"It's fine," Roxy said and she arched her eyebrows at her in question, since, well, it obviously wasn't.

"I mean, it's all right," she corrected herself.

Her eyebrows wandered up further.

The agent sighed, seeming to regret the movement due to the pain and Darja would have offered support, if she knew how to.

She swallowed, looking for words, anything to distract her from the pain if she could do nothing about it itself – talking would help, she guessed, but about what? There weren't many pleasant stories she knew to tell.

"Do you know any Russian?" she questioned, amber eyes blinking back at her in confusion.

"No," she answered. "Not really."

"Would you mind if I taught you some?" she asked, wringing her hands; it was probably a stupid idea since she didn't think she was any good at teaching languages and it had been a while since she had last learned any herself and, on top of that, she didn't even know where to start with Russian which had grammar as extensive and complicating as German – but she wanted to help and all the help she could provide consisted of distractions.

The agent hesitated for a moment before nodding, even managing a small smile. For a moment, Darja's mind went blank like she wasn't a native speaker, she had forgotten all the easy words.

In the end, she settled on the basics like 'hello' or 'goodbye' or how to greet someone according to the time of the day or how to introduce oneself – and, while her pupil was doing pretty well, only struggling to her condition, she couldn't stop wondering if she was doing enough, if she wasn't helpless after all, if she wasn't just killing time for her own sake because she didn't want to think.

When the door opened, she held her gun. A second later she noticed what she was doing and quickly put her jacket over it; she didn't recognize the man looking at her with an expression of pure horror on his face, but Roxy seemed to. Maybe he was a member of the supportive staff. He better was.

She helped the agent get outside where an ambulance was waiting; from the inside, it didn't look like any she knew, but, then again, nothing about what she had stumbled into here was ordinary.

Another man approached, out of breath from running, the other kid agent. She wanted to say something to him, but the words all got tangled up on the tip of her tongue, she had wanted to apologize, but the timing didn't seem right.

He simply nodded at her, then climbing into the car before the doors closed.

She took a moment to direct her attention to Merlin who was now standing next to her, she couldn't recall hearing his steps. Perhaps it should worry her. Perhaps. But she couldn't bring herself to bother.

"Maybe you should have gone with them," he said after a moment; only his suit looked disheveled, a clear sign for a man usually as composed as him.

"I'm fine," she replied. "Most of it isn't even mine." She caught his gaze.

Frowning, he watched her, his eyes glued to her abdomen. "You're bleeding," he pointed out, she pressed a hand to the wound without looking, she could feel the warm blood under her fingers.

"There's been worse," she told him. It was more an excuse than anything else; she hadn't noticed herself and that was a problem, it could have ended much worse than that.

"Perhaps," he answered and studied her, from the swelling on her face and the cuts in her clothes to the bruised knuckles; the worry on his face made her stomach twist like someone stabbed her.

"Thank you," he said then.

"Did you think I'd let her die?" she asked in return; she wanted to sound angry but she couldn't, she wouldn't blame him if he had thought exactly that.

"No," he replied and her heart was in her throat. "I am still glad you did what you could."

Darja swallowed, something was strange – something had _changed_.

There was a moment of silence between them, long and heavy, and she didn't know what to say; she felt the need to say something, anything, really, she had to – it was getting too much and she didn't want to find what questions he could come up with; she wasn't saying he was tactless, she was just saying that he was addressing topics she'd sometimes rather not address.

"I found some bullets," she said finally and looked at him.

Merlin nodded slowly.

She drew in another breath and held it in her lungs, waiting, waiting for a long second before releasing it. It was trembling in her chest.

"You seem upset."

She shrugged. "Maybe I am," she answered, surprised he wasn't bringing up her injury again, but he was a considerate person, he'd say something about it if she showed signs of fainting. Which she didn't, luckily.

"We're stuck, right?" she went on. "I mean, we've still got nothing. Even if these bullets turn something up, we're no step closer to finding anything out. It's not in our control."

"I'm afraid so," he replied, quietly, a small change of tone giving him away.

There was more to it than that, the two of them were painfully aware – how nothing about it made sense unless they were truly being pushed around and that meant something had infiltrated the system so well, they knew how to outplay them. Which was surely hard to bear. A traitor among hitman was something else than a traitor in a secret service relying on the trust and honesty of all its members to function.

She figured, it was personally too, for some reason; she hadn't read the reports carefully enough to remember and at this point, it felt indecent to do so instead of asking.

"Come on," Merlin said and motioned her to follow him.

She did, pressing her fingers deeper into her side until the blood soaked her gloves, just another reminder of what all had went wrong.


	21. Chapter 21: Overdue

cw & tw: drug addiction, angst, trauma

* * *

Roxy had needed rest after the surgery – he had insisted; if he had not, he'd probably find her already looking through security camera footage by now – but she had insisted telling him of the attack anyway, so he had a rough idea of how it had transpired, and still, it didn't make sense to him why anyone would put such an effort into such a plan for … what, exactly?

Perhaps things had been meant to go differently, perhaps someone had been meant to die and that death had been avoided simply by coincidence – or it was all a game and they were pieces being arranged and placed as necessary.

Merlin abandoned these considerations with a shake of his head. Right now, there was no time for them, he could worry about it later until his head felt like splitting. The thought had cornered him in a moment where he was alone and not busy with another task yet; the bitter taste hadn't left his mouth since this morning.

The good news was that, while being out of active service for a couple of weeks, Roxy would be fine. The wound simply needed time to heal. He had tried reassuring her, but he hadn't found the right words; being so close to agents was new, and the loss for words that overcame him whenever he tried to be encouraging or comforting made him wonder if he was truly doing enough. After all, he usually didn't have any problems with words, out of all things.

Even the silence which normally comforted him was strange now, so very unusual, despite it being the most familiar about the headquarters.

He slowed down his steps when Doctor Clark approached him.

"Merlin," she greeted him with a tilt of her head when they came to a halt in the hallway. He returned the gesture. "I wanted to speak to you."

"For which reason?" he questioned, frowning. He could imagine a number of them, all of unpleasant nature.

"There are several, actually," she said without answering his question, a small seize forming between her brows, gaze kept on him. "I don't mean to intrude in matters that don't concern me, but if you care about that woman, I ask you to talk with her."

"About what?" He didn't know why he asked. The answer was obvious enough; he still remembered the first time she had approached him about Darja.

"I'm quite sure she is going to kill herself soon," Clark told him, studying his reaction. "I did tell you that she might overdose on morphine, yes? I'm going to say it again: if you can't convince her to stop immediately, she will die." She paused briefly, giving the tight feeling in his chest just enough room to scratch at his ribs.

"How bad is it?" The thought of loosing someone had never been easy on him; he had sworn to never let it happen again and yet, he had lost Harry, thousands of miles away, hands bound.

"Frankly, I'm not sure what narcotics to use during an operation," she replied. "Most are based of morphine after all and her tolerance is high enough that ordinary doses barely show any effect." Another pause. "The current level in her blood numbs the sensation of pain entirely, which is why she ended up with that cut without noticing. We had to stitch it. Her knuckles were swollen to the point where she should have been incapable of moving her hands at all."

Merlin nodded; it was another thing he had neglected in his carelessness, assuming it hadn't been so bad because she had seemed fine, even though she had been far from fine the entire time.

"I see," he said eventually, his mouth dry.

"I do hope you're successful," Clark told him.

"As do I," he answered, turning towards the door he had been heading towards to.

"Merlin," the doctor called after him, making him stop. "I should remind you that I'm not letting you off easy this time. You need to get checked up yourself."

"I wasn't hurt," he answered.

Clark's expression softened. "I'm aware," she said. "It's not for me."

Her words needed a moment to sink in, he needed a moment to understand what she was telling him – it was another strange feeling in his chest, another one he couldn't name.

He swallowed.

"One more thing," Clark said, her expression having turned serious again. "She doesn't seem to be eating regularly."

"I suppose," he replied, trying to remember an occasion where he had seen her eating, only to realize that he couldn't come up with one.

"When is the last time _you_ have eaten?" she asked him, narrowing her eyes. When he failed to answer her, she shook her head with a sigh.

"I'm aware of the importance of your duty, Merlin, and I am thankful that it's you who deals with all of that responsibility, but please also take care of yourself," she went on in a softer tone of voice. "Don't run yourself into the ground. We'd be truly helpless without you."

"My apologies," he replied, but the words seemed dull from his mouth. "I'll try to do better."

Doctor Clark nodded before she continued her path; the echo of her steps had something final.

Gradually, he drew in a deep breath, then knocking on the door to his left, waiting for a reply he didn't get. He went on to carefully press down the handle, ultimately entering.

Darja seemed to have fallen asleep.

Merlin hovered at the threshold for a second before quietly closing the door behind him, crossing the room to sit down on the chair next to the bed.

She didn't look good. The bruises had turned black and while the cuts had been taken care off, they were still bright red. The blood was gone from her clothes – it had been the worst of it all, seeing her covered in blood and not knowing whether it was her own –, her skin seemed paler. He found himself looking for a blue-ish colour on her lips, relieved he didn't see any.

"Go away," she muttered. Her eyelids fluttered before she opened her eyes, sitting up only to glare at him. It didn't hold even half the edge it usually did.

"I didn't mean to wake you," he replied, his tone soft and quiet. How would things be if she died? Thinking about it made words choke him.

"You look more horrible than I feel," she answered, her voice having adopted to the quiet as she arched her eyebrows.

"Doctor Clark told me that you might die," he said after a moment of feeling like suffocating. "And I don't want you to die."

She didn't argue with him, like she already knew, like she had known he would say it, and yet, she appeared speechless, for the very first time ever since he had met her.

"I don't want to die go insane either," she said but her eyes went right through him.

"Why that?" he questioned and studied her. Merlin already knew. He already knew why and if it was half as bad as he dreaded it to be, he couldn't even begin to blame her, but, at the very same time, it didn't change the fact that she was on the brink of death, only another syringe away from it.

"It's because of my scar," she said, clenching her hands into fists. Her knuckles – bruised, all shades of violet and blue and yellow – started bleeding again. "There is no other way I can deal with it. And I've tried." The desperation sat deep in her chest, colouring her words.

"Could you try again?" he asked and caught her gaze, the hesitation surprising him; he had surprised himself by asking in the first.

"I could," she answered hoarsely. "But I don't know if I can make it." She paused. "Merlin, I know how bad it is, but I can't even begin to explain to you why it's a bad idea. There are worse things than dying."

"Perhaps," he said, freezing up. He didn't know what else to reply: she had always known that this might be her death, she had always known that she might die young – and it still was an option to her.

"But," he went on, carefully. "You don't want to die, do you?"

"No," she replied, fingers curling deeper into her palms. "But …" She swallowed when her voice gave in.

"Is it possible that the pain you experience is more of an emotional nature than a physical one?"

"Maybe," she answered and lifted her shoulders. "I just know it hurts."

"You know you wouldn't have to go through all of it alone, right?" he questioned. "If you need any kind of professional help, Kingsman has it."

"It's scary," she muttered, looking at him. "I've already been through the process once. They couldn't do anything." Her breath hitched in her throat. "And, you know, I have the habit of becoming a bit too attached to people. You ask me now to put my trust in you and your people, much more trust than I can give, when I have to go back to a business where it means nothing."

He had become so used to her that he had forgotten that she wasn't an agent – it wouldn't end well her if she went back. Surely, she was strong, both mentally and physically, yet there was only so much a human being could take and she seemed to have long reached her limits.

"I'm sorry," he said, tongue heavy with so many words he couldn't speak.

"It's not your fault," she told him. "I'm appreciating the thought, but … I'm not one of your agents."

"You could be," he told her, the pain of reality being different splitting him in two and crushing her, another unspoken possibility hanging between them.

"I'm a hitman," she answered with a shaky breath, a tremble in her chest, a few quick blinks of her eyes. "And you don't get to leave that behind." She swallowed. "When you try, you usually don't live long after. That's not a danger I'd want to put you into."

His chest ached, the realization etching itself into his brain, he couldn't breathe. She had always been so afraid to care and yet, she did. "Sometimes, I wish we had met under different circumstances."

"Sometimes, I do too," she admitted. "And sometimes, I wish I wasn't that honest."

"It's appreciated," he replied, the corners of his mouth moving upwards for half an inch. One could barely call it a smile.

"You're really one of a kind," she muttered with a shake of her head.

"Thank you."

She snorted, but it did little to cover up her laugh, a genuine one. He liked the sound of it.

"You should get some rest," he said into the silence.

"You should, too," she said, looking at him with a serious expression.

"I'll try," he said, the smile giving him away.

"If I got no chance of backing out of this, neither do you," she retorted, barely even trying to hide the smirk.

* * *

In his defence: he had tried getting enough sleep, somewhere between one duty and another, an hour or two before he grew restless again. Only months of doing the same thing over and over again made it easier to push past that tiredness and ignoring it.

He felt guilty, to a degree, for not doing enough, for not trying harder. Kingsman currently depended on him to function at all. It wasn't entirely true, if he had wanted to, he could have organized for the next Arthur to be chosen months ago, but since he dreaded the changes that would come with that – too many old men stuck in their ways –, he always delayed the matter further.

Merlin slowed down his steps and knocked on the door leading to Darja's room.

This time, she didn't reply either, so he carefully pushed the door open.

She seemed as if she might be sleeping, so he considered leaving her alone, but something made him hesitate. He looked closer, noticing the sweat on her skin and the twitching of her fingers and, perhaps, that was even more a reason to leave her alone since he'd be most likely intruding in a moment where she didn't want to be seen, and yet, the worry stung beneath his skin like a knife.

Silently, he stepped inside, getting closer. She did, indeed, seem to be worse than she had been yesterday: her skin was paler and the shadows beneath her eyes darker, but that wasn't everything.

"Darja," he called, trying to wake her up, hesitant to touch her shoulder – she didn't like people touching her.

A long moment passed before she slowly blinked, opening her eyes one at a time, then bolting upright. Her breathing was heavy, she trembled, hands digging into the blanket, eyes wandering around the room in panic until they settled on him.

"My apologies," he said quietly, settling on the chair. Standing made him uneasy, made him realize there were too many limbs that needed to be organized. "I shouldn't have intruded."

She shook her head after another second, the movement stiff and unnatural; the helplessness sat in his throat.

"Are you … all right?"

She glared at him. "No," she answered, her voice hoarse. "You knew that."

Another apology was already at the tip of his tongue but he swallowed it since it didn't seem right, it wouldn't make up for it – it were just words and the longer he thought about them, the more they lost their meaning.

"Is there anything I can do to help you?" he asked eventually.

"You know what I want to say, right?" she replied with a sigh, running a hand through her hair, knuckles all shades of violet and red.

"Then you also know what I'd replied," he answered, watching her; he had to think of seeing her die by her own hands. It made him sick.

"Then we're going to have the same conversation again," she remarked, tired and worn out and … he understood her. That was why he couldn't give in.

"Why do you think it would turn out so badly for you?", he asked then, his voice soft and quiet, nearly giving away when he met her gaze. "Why do you think it's worse than dying?"

She looked at him, expressionless, hands clenching into fists. "I'd be re-living the same moment over and over," she said. "An endless loop. There's no escaping it. I'm sure I'd eventually loose my mind over it."

It left him speechless; he couldn't say why, maybe because her words were coloured with a pained emotion so deeply rooted in her he forgot to breathe. And he remembered his theory too, the one making him nauseous even still, the pictures etched into his brain. Merlin didn't want to be right about something that had traumatized her so badly.

"I do want to help you," he said then, meaning every letter of it and yet, all of them seemed useless from his lips. Just empty phrases.

"I know," she said. "And I wish I knew a way you could, but I don't. I don't want to argue, it's just …"

He nodded. No need to finish that sentence.

The silence stretched between them into a long moment, heavy on his shoulders, heavy on his tongue, words he couldn't speak circling around his head, no more than a vague feeling.

"Maybe," she said then, trailing off, and he looked at her, waiting for her to continue. She shook her head and ran a hand through her hair again.

"I don't know," she muttered. "I don't know what to do."

"Neither do I," he told her, his voice raw. "I'm not trying to persuade you. It is your decision, after all." But he still didn't want her to die; he had already said it once, so there was no use repeating it if he didn't want to defy his own words. He wasn't trying to persuade her, to make her feel guilty, to pressure her into something that could destroy her, even if it wasn't his intention.

"Thanks," she replied. "Still – what do I do? Stick to the old ways and pretend nothing has changed? Or do something else?" She caught his gaze, and he thought, deep down, she had already decided. The brown of her eyes seemed dull in the artificial light, but they weren't lacking anything.

"I can't tell you," he mused.

They were silent for a moment.

"No matter what I'll do, nothing will be _right._ "

"Why does it have to be?"

"Because that's the way it should be, isn't it?" she questioned, so trouble he wanted to reach out and calm her, but she probably didn't want that. "I should only be making decisions that feel right and that I won't regret, but this time around, I'll either die or I'll have to leave behind everything. Neither of those options feels right."

"Darja," he said softly, the pieces that didn't make sense slowly fitting together in his head. "We're only talking about withdrawal. I'm not asking anything else."

"I know," she replied, quick and angry, not at him nor the circumstances but at herself. "But I can't go back and pretend nothing has changed if I stop. I've been taking morphine for years now. It has become so intervened with the rest of my life that I can't just step away from it and keep doing what I do."

"You think you won't be the same person without it," he concluded, gradually coming to understand the weight of it all: she was addicted. Addiction changed people. He still remembered her anger, the change of moods, the arrogance and the pretence – and now he looked at her and he saw who she really was.

"I know I won't," she replied. "I know that, deep down, I can't keep being a hitman 'till I've got enough money to never worry again. And if I stop hiding and pretending, like I'd do if I admit that morphine is doing more harm to me than help, I'd also have to admit that this is a dead end for me. I can't just go back. I'm not made for it."

"Do you want to?" he asked. "Go back, that is."

"It's all I know," she answered and lifted her shoulders. "I still owe a debt I can never repay. I mean, I'm a grown woman. I can do whatever I want to, but I've told you before: it's nothing you can just leave behind like any other job."

"I see," he said, all of it shaping up into a bigger picture. It wasn't a pretty one, it wasn't a good one; he understood her reasoning and yet …

"It seems," he said after a moment, not sure how to use words any longer. He didn't want to add to her pain. "That this investigation will continue for a while."

She studied him with an arched eyebrow. "You're suggesting that I ignore the consequences of my decision until I have to face them? You?" He would have expected a mocking tone, but she sounded more shocked than anything else.

"I have no other advice left to offer," he told her, the words dragging their edges along his throat until it ached. He didn't think there was any use discussing it; he didn't need to convince her. She was already convinced.

She simply looked at him, blinking, a sinking feeling settling in his stomach. A small smile tucked at the corners of her mouth, clearly amused. What was so amusing about it?

"I know," she answered eventually, the smile not quite vanishing from her face. It was soft and genuine nature made him wonder; the expression in her eyes had turned gentle, realer.

He stayed silent, waiting, his breath hitching in his chest.

Darja sighed once more, covering her face with her hands; he opened his mouth to speak, but he didn't know what to say – it was the worst part about it all, sitting right next to someone and not being able to do anything since everything seemed wrong, very word and every action.

"It sucks," she muttered, digging her palms into her eye sockets.

Carefully, he reached out, his fingers barely brushing against her wrists – he'd pull away the second she tensed, the second he noticed discomfort –, before he pulled her hands from her face, withdrawing immediately after.

"Don't hurt yourself," he said, his voice trembling in his chest. "It doesn't do any good."

She clenched her hands into fists, breathing in and out, before she looked at him again, a new-found determination about her. The strength he had never doubted she possessed had returned. And, much to his surprise, he discovered that it made him happy.

"Alright," she said.

"All right?"

"Well, it's not _alright_ , but I'll do it anyway," she said.

"And by that you're referring to going through with the withdrawal?" he questioned, not sure how to react; he had nearly expected she wouldn't do it.

"Yes." She swallowed. "You don't have to tell me how bad it's going to be. I know."

He nodded, noticing her hesitation and motioning her to go on.

"I have some conditions though," she told him. "Please just leave when I ask you to."

"Naturally," he answered without missing a beat.

Darja nodded, silence settling between them for a brief moment in which it became apparent that each of them still had something else to say, they had barely only scratched at the surface of the sea filled with unspoken things.

Merlin tasted them in his tongue, sorting them and putting them into order, forming sentences out of them, about to speak them.

The buzz of her phone on the night stand stopped him. Groaning, she reached for it, eyes narrowing as she unlocked it, holding it closer to her face than she probably should.

Wordlessly, she handed him the device, his stomach twisting when he briefly met her gaze. Something was wrong.

Pushing up his glasses, he lowered his eyes to the screen.

It was a simple text message, sent by a number she hadn't saved to her contacts.

 _Finish it, Nimue_.

It didn't quite send a chill running down his spine, for he had seen worse things than that, and yet, he was uneasy, wondering just how much their opponent had planned, just how deep they were caught up in a trap set for them.

"I don't think I want to know what it means," she said flatly.

"No," he answered with a shake of his head as he returned the pone to her. "I don't think you do." The implication wasn't sitting well with him, not only because it didn't fit at all – they didn't exactly hate each other, perhaps they had passed onto the point where they trusted each other, but there was nothing else to it. Thinking about anything beyond that made him nauseous.

"You alright?" she asked after a moment, carefully, fists unclenched and her fingers hovering in the hair between them before she lowered her hand.

"I'm not sure," he admitted before he was even aware of what the words meant. "As far as the implication goes, they seem to have intended another role for you than the killer."

"Well, good thing I'm not listening to what people tell me to do," she replied with a smile baring too many teeth, and he stifled a laugh. Not because it was funny, but because it was so much _her_.

"Yes," he replied, attempting to hide his amusement, but he met it in her eyes again.

The silence between them stretched once more, a moment where they just looked at each other, before he released a breath and blew them away.

"I can have the number traced, if you want," he offered.

Darja hummed in response. "Just don't look through my phone."

"I wasn't intending to," he said and she arched an eyebrow at him; guilt and shame washed over him. "I promise."

"I was just messing with you," she said and ran a hand through her hair. "Don't worry about it."

"I'll be back," he said eventually as he rose.

"Hopefully," she muttered.

* * *

the good news is that we're halfway in! literally. there are only another 21 chapters left and i like how this one also marks the beginning of a lot of things - i'm just really happy to have made it this far and i'm pumped for all the things that are to come! (also: lots of love to everyone still reading and keeping up. i love you.)


	22. Chapter 22: Plans

**Chapter 22**

 _plans_

A week passed and he wasn't any wiser. He felt more guilty though, nausea overcame him when he considered it: he had vowed to never underestimate anything ever again since the price to pay for that was high and yet, he had underestimated the toll a withdrawal would take.

There was no denying it. Darja had done worse than he assumed; she might hadn't told him but he had seen it, he had seen how much she had been suffering, and he had been – again – incapable of doing anything about it, he had been incapable of helping her.

Slowly, Merlin let out a breath held for too long, pinching the bridge of his nose as he tried to adjust his thoughts for now. He was going to have to deal with that soon enough.

Roxy was doing as fine as her condition allowed her to be, her arm had been bandaged, and he was afraid she was a bit more miserable about not being able to do any missions for a while than she showed; Eggsy had recovered from the shock, but Merlin never quite knew what to say to either of them, all the words never seemed good enough, never seemed to properly convey what he wanted to express. While he was painfully aware of his failures, he didn't know how to make up for them.

By the time he stood in front of Darja's room, there was a lump in his mouth. Gradually, he raised his hand to knock, unsure whether he should or shouldn't; perhaps. Perhaps she didn't want to see him. Perhaps she needed a little more time and he'd be happy to give it to her, but he was no actual wizard. He didn't know what she wanted.

The door swung open and he came to face her, both of them staring at each other in a brief moment of surprise.

Clearing his throat, he took a step back, not meaning to intrude into her personal space. "How are you?" he asked, his voice unsteady.

"I'm fine," she replied.

He studied her, from the dark shadows beneath her eyes to the messy hair and pale skin, the shaking hands she dug deeper into the pockets of her pants when she noticed his gaze. Yet, she wasn't pretending to be someone else any longer. She wasn't trying to hide, she wasn't trying to hide the softer expression on her face, the hesitation to look away, the way her teeth dug into her bottom lip. It was a funny feeling in his stomach.

"You're not fine, Darja," he told her.

"I'm going to be fine," she said, something lighting up in her eyes that hadn't been there before.

"I've had enough time to think," she went on, holding his gaze, "and I've made up my mind."

He swallowed. "What is your resolution?"

They were still close enough that he could extend his arm, putting a hand on her shoulder and asking her to relax before she snapped from the tension she was holding. He didn't. It was a border set from the very beginning and as long as she didn't explicitly tell him it was all right to cross it, he wouldn't. Instead, he took another step back.

In all truth, a part of him had doubted her, worried she wouldn't be able to make it; there had been a point where he had sat at the other end of the room, the other side of the door, waiting with her, hoping she'd come around. And he felt guilty because of that, since, here she was. She had believed in herself the whole time, without fail, pulled herself together to emerge stronger than before, picking herself back up and putting herself back together, piece by piece. He admired that. He admired that a lot. So much, in fact, that it was choking him. She deserved his trust and faith and he had only given her half of it.

"You'll see," she told him with a small smile that had something contagious.

"You seem happy with it," he commented, the words leaving him before he had thought them through.

"I guess," she answered with a shrug, caught off guard for a second. Then she dug her hands deeper into the pockets of her pants, withdrawing a pack of cigarettes and putting one between her lips, going on to look for a lighter.

Merlin hesitated to react, quite possibly because he wasn't yet sure how to act around her now – he had seen her at a time in her life where she hadn't wanted anyone around and yet, she had asked him to stay. More than once.

He extended his hand. She studied him, arching her eyebrows in question, her fingers slowly wandering to her cigarette as if she was suddenly self-conscious about it.

"Do you want to get rid of all my bad habits?" she asked, amused. A good sign?

"Not all," he answered. "Only those that harm you. I'd rather not worry about long term effects on your health."

She blinked at first, then rolling her eyes at him. He hadn't really noticed how brown they were up until now; the colour was dull in the artificial light, but even still, there was something to them that send a sputtering burst of warmth through his veins.

"You know," she said as she put the cigarette away, tilting her head to study him as she leaned against the door frame. "You might just care about me."

"I never pretended I didn't," he replied, the weight of the words only settling in after.

She looked at him and she sighed. "Sometimes, I want to argue with you."

"I'm afraid there wouldn't be much to argue abut," he answered, barely capable of concealing how the corners of his mouth tugged upwards. "I imagine we see eye to eye on most accounts."

"Figuratively speaking," she replied and pushed herself from the door frame, taking half a step towards him in the process and now he couldn't stop thinking about it: she'd have to get to the tips of her toes so they could see eye to eye in a physical sense. Something about that thought made him nervous. Perhaps it was the proximity.

He cleared his throat. "There might be more side effects to the withdrawal than you have experienced until now. Be careful."

"I will," she answered, running a hand through her hair. "You're not going to let me forget about it anyway."

"Certainly not," he replied, a small smile returning to his face to match hers.

"Let's get going," he said with a shake of his head as his expression turned serious.

She nodded, pulling the door shut behind her before both of them set into motion.

They entered his office only a couple of minutes later. Merlin closed the door behind him.

She sank down into one of the arm chairs, stretching out her legs, putting her head back and closing her eyes.

"You seem tired," he said as he studied her, and she hummed in response without looking at him, making him wonder when he had started stating the obvious.

"Yeah," she said then. "Everything hurts." Perhaps he had underestimated that too; she had told him about the nightmares but he hadn't been aware of the full force of it, he hadn't been aware of how they had been eating away at her. He could see it clearly now.

"I hope you're getting better," he said.

"Just give me some time," she said as her eyes fluttered open and she caught his gaze for a moment, rendering him unable to move. His thoughts got muddied, he wanted to reply but the words escaped him in a different way than they usually did.

He was afraid this was the one thing he couldn't do for her: they didn't _have_ time. It slipped through his fingers faster than ever, until there was nothing left of it, and, occasionally, their opponent would remind them of how easily they could find them.

Merlin felt uneasy standing, his legs seemed like giving in under him and, quite possibly, it had to do with the little amount of sleep he was getting – guilt chewed at him.

"Is there something you only want to talk about with me?" she asked as he sat down in an arm chair next to her.

He watched her, wondering if he had ever paid so much attention to her before: there was a unique beauty in the sharpness of her facial features and the combination of several brown tones. It was, by no means, a conventional beauty, but it surely was one he could take a liking to if he kept studying her for longer than mere seconds while trying to evaluate her thoughts.

"No," he said eventually. "If there was something like that, I wouldn't wait for a suiting occasion to come around."

"You make it sound like you're insensitive," she remarked with a roll of her eyes before her expression went soft and careful.

"I'm not going to give up anything regarding you unless you specifically ask me to," he told her with a tilt of his head that had been meant to either be a nod or a bow. It was neither.

"Thanks," she muttered in return, the smile creeping across her face ending up being rather shy.

He returned the smile and they lapsed into silence again, it stretched across the room until it weighted down on his chest with all the things he hadn't said yet and might never said at all. It wouldn't be his first secret to keep. Neither his last, he imagined.

Eventually, there was a knock on the door and the two younger agents entered. Merlin motioned them to sit down on the couch.

He cleared his throat, three pairs of eyes settling on him, watching him.

"The empty cartridges have been tracked back to the fabric that produced them," he explained. "The originally branch sits in the US but they have factory near Liverpool. Since this company specializes in making individualized rifles, we managed to find the man who brought the one used to fire these rounds."

"Trap," Darja commented with an arch of her brows.

Merlin nodded silently. What else could it be? It was too easy all of a sudden, but they had no choice but to investigate if they wanted to follow through with what they had begun, even if it was a bone thrown to starving dogs – he was no man for risks. Under normal circumstances, he would have left it all laying there on his desk until he had a hundred percent safe plan on how to approach the matter. This time around though, the whole of Kingsman was in danger and he couldn't just do nothing, even if doing something meant sending one of his agents into a situation where he couldn't guarantee for their well-being.

"Maybe we're just lucky," Eggsy muttered but it sounded like a poor excuse.

He wanted to agree with him, he wanted to believe he had attained this information due to genius skill and years of experience. He knew better than that. The sinking feeling in his stomach had been enough to convince him. Hearing it from Darja's mouth had settled it, giving it a sense of finality he couldn't argue against.

"Never lucky enough to catch a ghost," the woman next to him muttered, tilting her head.

"Unfortunately," Merlin added with a tired sigh. Something about her words made him think of something he had heard a long time ago, something stirring in the back of his mind and making him uneasy enough to forget to breathe.

"So, whatever we do, it's going to be wrong?" Roxy questioned, voice quiet but firm. She had made a decision regarding that topic already, he could tell, but he didn't know which kind. He didn't know whether he wanted to ask either; both these agents were ready to fling themselves into every mission out there, as young and idealistic as they were. He hoped it wasn't going to get them killed.

"Not necessarily," Darja answered, her eyebrows wandering up another inch.

"Because it's a made-up concept?" Eggsy retorted drily.

"I was going to say that we can either do nothing, which is most definitely a bad choice, or we can do something that will most likely spiral out of control, which is not _as much_ of a bad choice," she answered, a smirk tugging at her lips,

"You're really not good at comforting people," the agent muttered but he still seemed easier.

Instead of replying, Darja sank back into the chair, a tremble in her chest that he felt in his own as well – it wasn't right. And yet, what else could they do? He didn't know. He could put hours upon hours into pulling every kind of information about this man from the internet and in the end, it wouldn't change a thing.

"You thinking undercover mission?" Eggsy asked him after a moment of silence. Merlin shook his head, wondering how hard it was on them – he couldn't imagine. He hadn't been young in a long time. He didn't know if he ever wanted to be again.

"There is no time for that," he answered. "It'll be a quick in-and-out, placing one of my programs in the system to access information from here."

"That doesn't sound so difficult," Roxy remarked, frowning. "Where is the catch?"

"The mansion is tightly secured," he replied with a small nod. "Armed guards and watch dogs."

"That's not a catch," Darja cut in. She had placed her cheek on her hand, watching him so carelessly that he wondered if she usually looked like that, lounging in a chair and effortlessly attentive.

What was he supposed to say? He was in a room with three incredibly capable people who all could do this a thousand times over without slipping up, and, yet, he didn't want to send any of them in. He didn't want any of them in a situation he had no control over. He didn't want to send any of them into a trap. And he didn't know how to tell them.

Someone had to do it though. He knew. And, yet, at the very thought of it, his stomach clenched together, like something was dragging him down beneath the sea until he drowned, his throat locked up when he just considered it – he saw Harry die again, again and again, feeling helpless. Twice was too many. He wasn't going to let it happen a third time.

"We can handle that," Eggsy mused with a confident smile and Merlin desperately wanted to believe him but it had all spiralled out of his control at one point and he didn't know how to get it back.

"I don't doubt it," he replied quietly, not knowing what else to say. He felt like he had given himself away, like he had already admitted to what he truly thought and he could see it in Darja's eyes; she knew. He wasn't sure he wanted her too, he still hadn't gotten used to the idea that opening up to people meant being vulnerable and he had never liked that.

"Then what's the problem?" Eggsy asked after a moment of silence, his eyes trained on him but he didn't seem to have it figured out, unlike Darja who watched him so closely he worried.

He didn't want her to speak for him but he didn't want to speak himself either – the truth was bound to come out sooner or later anyway, but now, when he was looking at them, it felt like being stabbed: he had always carried responsibility well enough. This time was different though. He wasn't simply sending agents into the field. He was sending friends.

"Are you all right?" Roxy asked in a voice so soft he wondered whether the ache would ever stop; he cared about them and he wanted very much to tell them not to worry and how everything was going to be fine, but he couldn't lie either.

He swallowed, the words escaping him once more and perhaps they were never going to find their way back to him. What was he going to say? Nothing – he could say nothing. Or he could say everything but he had never done so well with feelings.

"The hard thing is that I have to decide who to send in," he said eventually, his voice giving out under him.

"You don't have to if someone volunteers," Darja remarked with an arch of her brows.

"I'd still have to approve."

"Look," she said and set her feet on the ground, balancing her elbows on her knees. "If you keep mulling over it, you'll never decide. We can't always have an easy solution. I know you'd prefer to have a safe option, but there's none this time."

That was the problem, wasn't it? No safe option. No guarantees, no ways of being sure. This time, he had to gamble and he had never liked gambling if there was no way to rick the game.

"She's right, you know," Eggsy said and looked at him, with the expression of someone desperate to prove themselves – and he wanted to give him that, he wanted to give him the very opportunity to prove himself and he wanted all the other agents to see how well he did, but he had to think of Harry when he looked at him.

It was unfair, to a degree. Eggsy wasn't Harry. They weren't even that similar in character, aside from being helplessly optimists and kind and always ready to show they were just as good as everybody else, Eggsy was more like his father if anything. He had seen him die too.

"I know," Merlin replied with a sigh. The weight on his shoulders stayed.

Every decision was wrong. Somehow. And there was nothing he could do about it.

Perhaps he should just come out and say what was worrying him, that he didn't want to loose someone else while being absolutely incapable of helping or saving them, yet, he couldn't. It wasn't like him at all and maybe that was what was frustrating him so much all about it. His wounds hadn't healed, they had been torn open again and again every time he had to send an agent into the field. And he was missing a friend he had have for half his life and as much as he liked Eggsy and Roxy and even Darja, none of them could replace him.

"If it helps," Darja said eventually but her voice was missing all the edge, "I'm volunteering."

"That doesn't help at all," he returned flatly. Rationally speaking, he'd take the least risk with her, being a hitman who had dug herself out of a number of disadvantageous situations before, but she wasn't stable. She had barely survived a week without drugs and she was far from her old form.

She shrugged her shoulders like she didn't care. He knew that it was an act.

"Someone has to do it," Roxy pointed out and he couldn't bear looking at him; her voice gave her away: she had figured him out.

Silently, he nodded, the moment of silence stretching on for so long he wondered if he had made a mistake somewhere – maybe he was still making one, not looking up, not being a leader, not doing what was literally his job now. But the burden was too great and, for the first time in years, he was scared.

"No one's going to die," Darja told him with a roll of her eyes. Merlin couldn't quite share her confidence.


	23. Chapter 23: The Struggle with Technology

cw: animal death, trauma

a/n: the full title of this chapter is actually "The Struggle with Modern Technology" but unfortunately that's a too long to put it as actual title

* * *

She wouldn't say she suddenly doubted the whole operation because she surely didn't; these thoughts lingering in the back of her mind were always there, always whispering about what could go wrong so that she could make plans to deal with it. In a way, they were part of her job. Except … that this here, this what she was about to do, wasn't her job. She wasn't here to kill anyone, she wasn't here as a hitman. Darja hadn't lost her trust in her abilities. Her trust in her mind … was a different thing.

The cold chewed at her, biting at her muscles through the fabric of her clothes, turning her fingers into solid blocks of ice and her breaths shallow. British winters got icier than she had thought they would.

Sighing, she shook her head, studying the sky above her head, dark and starry, even though the lights still stained them, erasing them, but all she could think off for a moment was a twitch in her leg, something tingling beneath her skin – she swallowed the panic that came with it, the worry and fear that it would turn into mind-numbing pain soon enough. Good thing the operation wasn't meant to take up a lot of time, she probably wouldn't even need half an hour if she was lucky and she was pretty sure she could do that. But a part of her still went longing for some sense of security, even if it was fleeing and temporarily and costing her her life, security amounted to greater value than printed paper in her business.

Darja pushed up the glasses Merlin had given her, they sat uncomfortably on the bridge of her nose. Did she want to get used to their weight? She couldn't say.

They were about an hour or so from London, it all had turned into rural landscapes with rolling fields and lone houses, but it still felt small. Smaller than the states, surely, and maybe that was what made it so surreal; she honestly didn't know, she didn't like the countryside, she was a child of the city, bright lights and shrieking sirens, tall buildings inching closer each day and so many people you got lost between them.

She studied the wrought iron fence in front of her again. The security seemed to be lacking, considering there were no infra-red sensors or similar to be found, but she figured that might was just to give them a false sense of superiority, to lure them deeper into a trap that was most certainly waiting somewhere on these grounds, like a creature laying there with its jaws open, hoping for someone foolish enough to walk inside and swallow them whole.

The static crackled.

"How are you?" Merlin asked, sounding like he was right next to her, and she wondered, for a second, if she would have preferred that.

"Freezing," she replied, swallowing, not trusting her voice any further than that. What else was she going to say anyway? She wasn't going to talk about the doubts and nervousness and the fear that she could fuck it all up. She had decided to do it, offered to do it, and it was too late to back down anyway. They needed progress.

"You're from Russia," Eggsy argued.

"I'm from Moscow, not Siberia," she answered with a roll of her eyes. She had never exactly gotten along with the cold, being honest, especially not when she had been a child – now it was just another painful reminder. Another scar. Another thing she couldn't drown out and ignore.

Merlin cleared his throat. "Ready?" Her heart stuttered in her chest for a moment.

"Yeah," she said, moving her arms and legs to get some warmth back into her body. For a second, there was silence, nothing but her own heartbeat in her ears.

"Go," he said then.

She nodded, stepping closer to the fence that was at least twice as tall as she was, and too smooth to climb it. So she turned to one of the stone pillars instead, forcing her fingers through the small cracks between the rocks, slowly making her way up. She put her hands on the large, square top, straining her arms as she pulled herself up.

Darkness awaited her on the other side, trees lining up to make her life harder, so she was probably going to hurt herself one way or another. Darja shoved her legs over the edge, slowly lowering her body before leaping forward. Her feet connected with the ground first, she curled up. Then she listened – just her heartbeat and the wind and static as if Merlin wanted to say something but ultimately decided not to.

Gradually, she rose to her feet and made her way through the treeline. The darkness melted away, left behind tangled in low hanging branches, as she stepped out into the wide stretch of nothing before her. In the distance, the form of a building stood against the sky.

"Well, shit," she muttered. The problem with open spaces was the lack in cover. If she was spotted, she could just as well accept her fate and try taking down as many people as possible with her. And, sure, she had seen the satellite pictures and she trusted Merlin with scouting out the guards' schedule well enough that worst didn't come to worst, but … it still made her anxious. She wasn't invincible, after all.

"You should be able to get through before the next group exits the building," he said.

"I know," she replied, speeding up her steps until she fell into a light jog, every single one of her nerves tingling, muscles tense enough to snap at any moment. Her breath grew flat in her chest. Her heartbeat found a steady rhythm.

Nothing happened. No one came out of hiding, no one turned around a corner, ready to fight – it was too easy, wasn't it? To make it across an open space? Or maybe she was too pessimistic about it, she didn't know. She wanted to believe things were genuinely turning out okay for once and she did trust Merlin's skills and, yet, she was waiting for the trap, she was waiting for everything to go horribly wrong, she was waiting to fuck up.

The mansion towered over her, seemingly abandoned. Closed shutters. No way she'd get those open without making noise. No way to safely climb up the wall either; even if there was, where should she get in? She could open locks, naturally, but a feeling told her that she would have to deal with more than just an ordinary lock and-

Steps. Shit. Someone was coming. Shit shit shit.

Her heart went calm and steady in her chest. Killing was the easy part.

She stumbled, a small pit beneath her, leading to a window that probably lead to some shady basement in return – that screamed trap too, but what choice did she have? She had stood her ground against several people before, more than once, but there was always the risk of not coming away alive from it, especially if she had no idea what she was up against.

Darja squatted down, giving the window a small push. It opened. Definitely a trap. But so were the steps, heavy and loud and too many of them. She chose the basement, sliding down and pushing herself through the opening, landing six or seven feet further down.

Swallowing a curse, she held her breath as the pain shot from her feet into her legs. Above her, about five people passed. None came to check. None spoke. None seemed to notice. She still waited until the noise had died down completely, the silence suddenly much more deafening than it had been before.

"Are you hurt?" Merlin asked eventually, so quiet she wondered if he had held his breath too.

"No," she answered – well, she _guessed_ she wasn't hurt because she didn't feel any pain when she got up, testing her balance. Nothing hindering her. Good enough. She went on to scan her surroundings: lots of shelves without anything worthy of dwelling on, so she moved to the stairs instead.

"Be careful," he told her as she reached the top, facing a door massive enough to dislocate her shoulder of she tried forcing it open like police always did in movies.

"Yeah, yeah," she muttered. "It's a trap. I know."

"I mean it," he said, making her pause. "We don't know what kind of trap it might be."

"I know," she repeated, a stupid smile creeping across her face. "Are you worried it's going to be so messed up I can't handle it?"

His silence was answer enough, yet, she couldn't get that smile off her face. It was ridiculous, really, this was neither the time or place to smile about anything and she should really just get on with it. Seriously.

"I am," he said eventually, voice heavy enough that she suddenly felt bad for teasing him about it.

"I'll be careful," she said, knowing fully well that it was a promise she couldn't keep. Being careful was one thing when you had all the opportunities to figure it out, but her job rarely allowed her time and the ideas she came up with on the fly usually put her own health at risk, to some degree. She wouldn't be here if she _always_ had been careful her entire life.

Darja found the doorknob, the metal cold under her fingers as she twisted it, listening for any noise from the other side. There weren't any. She kept her breathing flat as she pushed the door open, slipping into the hallway. Thick carpet muffled her steps. The house stayed silent.

Outside, dogs barked. Well, that was a problem she was going to deal with when she had to.

For now, she kept close to the walls, walking through the hallway as she squinted across the darkness, trying to figure out where to go next. The absence of light switches and doors made her wonder; just how huge were the rooms here? Maybe time was also playing tricks on her, messing with her understanding of it.

Eventually, she spotted stairs, leading to another floor. It was worth the try; worst case, she had to search the whole thing anyway. Couldn't hurt to start somewhere, could it?

She moved across the hallway, eyes flickering from one side to another, looking for cover. Again, nothing happened. Which was even more suspicious. Seriously. What kind of trap was that? What sick shit had she walked into?

A wide window waited for her at the top of the stairs, granting her a view around the property. It lay there, empty, stretching to the street in the distance. Shapes chased along the ground, well visible even from up here. Everything out there was absolutely vulnerable.

"I feel sorry for the dogs," Eggsy muttered, sounding far away.

"I do too," Darja replied, keeping her voice low. "But I'm not promising I'm going to go easy on them if they try to eat me."

"I didn't mean that," he protested, weakly, and she remembered that he owned a dog too, a harmless little thing, and it wasn't like she didn't understand him – it was just that sympathy was something she couldn't afford. Not with animals, even less with people.

Where was the catch in all of this?

No use thinking about it now. She turned away, again keeping close to the walls and out of the few beams of light that made it through the glass, finding another door handle. Quietly, she pushed it open, holding her breath as she glanced inside.

The stench of cleaners was intense enough that she covered her mouth and nose, hoping it wouldn't eat away her lungs. Definitely not a room she wanted to immediately investigate, that much was for sure; she hoped she didn't have to come back to it later.

"The guards are changing their rhythm," Merlin informer her. A feeling told her it was more unsettling to him than it was to her.

Darja hummed in response, moving on to the next door, and it sounded like he drew in his breath, ready to say something, but, in the end, he simply exhaled again, keeping the words to himself. There was no need to talk about it anyway; she knew he worried and he knew she was aware of that, but they both also knew that this – whatever would be the best way to describe it – was necessary. And she wasn't going to argue with him about how she measured the dangers of a situation differently than him. Captivity was something she could deal with. Extreme pain and injuries were too. Sure, she'd rather avoid it, but she had managed before. She would again. To him, these things held the same weight as death did.

The next room smelled like old books and wood, harboring several shelves and paintings, everything just screaming expensive to her and she had never quite gotten why rich people always felt the need to excessively collect everything that cost a lot of money. What use was there in that?

She slipped inside, pulling the door shut behind her, slowly making her way to a massive desk. In the middle of it sat a laptop, hidden between letters and papers and books. Having forced it open, she ran her fingers along the sides to find a slot where she could plug in the flash drive, except … there wasn't any. There was just a slot for the charger.

Irritated, she took off her gloves and tried again. Still nothing. Darja tried once more, looking on top and beneath, turning it upside down and flipping it back, even searching the keyboard, but she came up with nothing.

"What the hell," she muttered, putting the laptop back down and staring at it for a moment. Who even built something like that? Who had thought this was a good idea to begin with?

"What is it?" Merlin asked.

"I can't find a flash drive slot," she replied, trying to calm her breathing. Alright. Well, it wasn't, it was honestly the last thing she had worried about and it sucked, but she could deal with it. Probably.

"You mean … it doesn't have one?" he concluded, sounding as confused as she felt.

"Apparently," she muttered, swallowing her anger. "What do I do about that?" Seriously. What the fuck was that? A part of her wanted to laugh, considering how ridiculous it was.

Silence lingered for a moment. Then it vanished. Steps thundering up the stairs, loud and clear – _fuck._

She grabbed the laptop, rushing to the window. Locked. Right. Well, good thing was that she didn't really have to worry about being quiet at this point. Within a second, she drew her gun and shot the lock, opening the window. The steps had gotten close enough that she couldn't hear her own heartbeat anymore.

It was only the second floor, she jump from this height without breaking anything. So she jumped.

Merlin took in a sharp breath the second she connected with the ground, rolling, pain still going through her legs and arms, knocking the air out of her lungs. There had been worse. And, as far as she could tell, she hadn't broken anything either.

Though, last time, her scar hadn't spontaneously decided to act up.

She dug her teeth into her bottom lip until it bled, getting back up. Here was no fire, no snow. She wasn't even in Russia. Someone was cursing but it wasn't her, she thought she knew these voices but her brain didn't recognize them.

Adrenaline flooded her veins. She was on the run here, no time for hazy minds and memories better left forgotten, no time for pain digging itself through every layer of her skin and muscle again, all the way to her marrow, leaving everything seething hot in its wake.

Her ribs were too small for her lungs to extend completely, she felt like suffocating, air burning in her lungs. Everything hurt. She kept moving. The world went numb.

Shots. If she had been hit, she couldn't tell. Perhaps the suit Merlin had fabricated also did its part, despite her doubts. She could worry about it later.

The same couldn't be said about the dogs.

Yeah, shit. She had no problem with killing whoever and whatever she had to, but killing people who had chosen to be bad was one thing. Killing animals with no concept of right or wrong or even an idea of human morals was another and she definitely was no fan of it.

About forty feet distance. They were only noises, forms blurring in the night. Green targets appeared in her vision.

"Just aim," Merlin told her, voice strained. The issue with that was: how was she supposed to aim at something she couldn't see? She kept running.

Thirty feet. Barely silhouettes. Maybe five or six … or seven of them.

"What are you waiting for?" he asked, half breathless and half tense, half worry and half unease. Her chest ached, aching to calm him, to tell him it wasn't that bad – except that it was. Just because she had gotten used to it didn't mean it was good.

The dogs approached, solid forms now. She shot the first one.

They stopped in their tracks, growling. One jumped at her. Darja dodged, ending up with teeth buried in her leg. Cursing, she pulled the trigger again.

She had barely managed to free herself before the largest of the animals sunk its teeth into the arm that held the laptop. The fabric of the suit gave in, blood pouring from the wound. She shot it too. Twice.

The next one knocked her off balance, sending her crashing to the ground. Her gun slipped out of her fingers due to the force of the impact; she simply drew her knife, twisting it in her hand to cut open the its throat. She kicked away the dead body, sheathing her knife again and retrieving her gun before getting back to her feet to shoot the remaining two.

Her ears tingle from the noise, she was deaf for a moment. Then the steps returned – she didn't look, she just started running, trying to make it to the tree line in time, even though she had a feeling her leg was going to give in under her weight any moment now.

 _Fuck_. Why did it have to be now? It wasn't fair, it was a load of bullshit, maybe it was just her luck – she didn't care.

"Hurry," Merlin told her. She wanted to laugh; she couldn't get out of this situation quickly enough.

"I'm trying," she replied, pressing the words through gritted teeth. She didn't have time to think about his worry, about all the things he coincidentally hadn't said but had meant anyway, she knew that tone of voice, she knew what to listen for.

She set her jaw and kept moving. No other choice here. If she tripped and fell … well, there was no guarantee she would get back up that easily. And she could avoid that horrible outcome, by just not thinking about it and focusing on her breathing instead, just … just getting on with it, she figured. Just getting out of here.

Finally, she reached the trees. Merlin guided her to the meeting point where she spotted a figure past the fence. It took her a moment to recognize Eggsy, it barely took a second to notice how hard he was trying not to burst right out with all the questions he wanted to ask.

Darja shoved the laptop through the fence. The kid took it and she climbed over the pillar once more, every single one of her muscles aching and hurting, tomorrow was going to be hell.

She landed on the other side with a thud before they hurried to the car; she crashed in the back, Roxy already waiting for her with something that looked close enough to a first aid kid from the outside not to make her worry.

For a moment, she caught Merlin's gaze, forgetting all her anger.

The girl next to her applied something to the wound in her arm and to the one in her leg – cool, sending a shiver through her, and she had several questions about how it was supposed to work and what it was exactly, but she didn't really want to know that badly. It was all crashing over her head now like waves; she had been to the ocean only once and a single wave had thrown her off balance, dragged her out into the open. It felt just like that: she couldn't breathe and she couldn't think, all she was really aware off was the panic in her throat.

Adrenaline was still pumping through her veins, she barely knew what she was doing, she was just breathing and hoping that would be all there was to it – that memories would stay memories after all. They had been real once. They weren't real now.

She swallowed and forced her eyes to stay open as the darkness drifted away. It could have been worse. Granted, it could also have been a whole lot better, but she had managed to get out of it. Out of that life-threatening situation, at least. There was no getting out of that conversation she was going to have with Merlin; it surprised her he hadn't said anything about it yet, but she contributed that to the fact that he didn't want to be indecent or whatever he had called it.

The silence was eerie, surreal even. She had figured, that someone would say _something_ , but if there were words, she didn't hear them and it made her wonder – had she done something wrong? Maybe. She didn't really found herself caring, being too tired and too sick of everything to do so, maybe there was an easy explanation for all of that, maybe killing dogs hadn't exactly put her into their good graces but she didn't see how she could have gotten out of that differently. Sure, she was well aware that her solution to a lot of problems included killing someone, but … she didn't know. She didn't want to think. If anything, it was a problem for tomorrow.

Eventually, they got to the headquarters. The kids exchanged a glance, hesitant, a part of her wanted to apologize for something, but she kept it to herself. Why apologize when she didn't even know what was going on? Maybe it had nothing to do with her. Or maybe it had. She wished she could just say she didn't care but she did care and that was a problem she would rather not address at all.

"Get some rest," Merlin said to the two agents. "We talk about everything else tomorrow." He sounded so tired she felt guilty, even though she still couldn't tell what it was that she felt guilty for. Nothing, everything, too much: she wouldn't have been able to give an answer if someone asked her.

The kids exchanged a glance, and for a moment, she thought they weren't going to leave – they wanted answers, she could tell, but she was afraid she didn't have any. In the end, they got out without saying anything, surely back with questions in the morning. Or perhaps they had said something and she had missed it, because she hadn't been paying attention; she had found his gaze in the rear-view-mirror again and she had forgotten how to breathe.

"Why did you wait so long?" he asked, tired, terribly tired.

"Distances are difficult," she replied slowly, all the years she had never allowed herself weakness coming back at her. Darja figured it was the same for him, revealing personal parts of yourself to other people was always scary. Especially if this thing could be used against you.

"How?" he asked, his stern expressing fraying, slowly cracking up and revealing the concern beneath.

"Things get blurry," she said, feeling her resistance melt away too. "I can't see forms or concrete shapes, it's all just colors mixing up."

"Have you always had problems with that?" he questioned, turning around to genuinely look at her, resignation coloring his voice.

"It's been getting worse," she admitted, gradually crossing her arms as she wasn't sure what to expect to come out of it.

"Have you considered that you might be severely nearsighted?"

"No," she answered, swallowing – she actually had never considered it, being honest, she had just accepted that it was another thing she just had to deal with by developing her ways to work around it, but she had … never considered that the root of the problem could be fixed. It had been an issue to her, another disadvantage, an obstacle to overcome. Not an illness.

They kept looking at each other for a moment, caught up in it, the rest of the adrenaline leaving her body until only exhaustion remained.

"Come," he said eventually, stepping out of the car and offering her his hand when he pulled the door open.

She arched an eyebrow at him, more out of habit than anything else, her fingers fitting around his wrist well enough that she barely noticed. Her leg couldn't be trusted. No muscle in her body could.

The trembling had already started and she hated it, she wanted to be able to move on her own, but there was no ignoring the pain now, no ignoring all the memories crowding her mind.

"Don't push yourself too hard," he told her, keeping as much physical distance as possible. Strangely enough, she didn't want to crawl out of her skin; being around him … it was alright. He had always kept his distance. He'd let her struggle on her own if she asked him to.

"Look who's talking," she muttered, no edge to her voice; he never applied his own advice to himself. Did she? She wondered. The fire ate her up again.


	24. Chapter 24: Truth

a/n: When you're a pantser, you inevitably come across the moment in a draft where you come up with an absolutely brilliant solution for a minor plot-related problem only to realize that, down the road, you should have done the necessary foreshadowing for it. It's all fun and games when you can just go back and make the adjustments! It's not all fun and games when you get that moment while you've already uploaded half of the story, thinking that this exact thing wasn't going to happen during the re-write. So, yeah ... sorry about that. I swear, one day, I'll go back and do it, one day, I'll do this story the justice it deserves, but as of right now, I want to finish this re-write, do some other stuff (including: surviving university and writing more prose), and, eventually, come back when my skills are, without a shadow of a doubt, top-notch. Until then, I ask you to bear with me and hope you keep enjoying the story!

tw & cw: implied rape and abuse

* * *

She woke up to confusion and disorientation. Pain jabbed in her arm and leg, light spiraled around the room, blinding her. Nausea rose in her throat when she sat up.

Darja waited until her heartbeat had calmed down, the bits and pieces of last night slowly putting themselves together. Different memories pushed against them, snow and fire and the stench of people burnt alive, clamoring, haunting her. Again. She didn't want to remember.

Her breath trembled in her chest, she expected a dull ache, she expected her ribs feeling too small to fit her lungs. Neither. Both. Too many feelings, too many thoughts, overwhelming her. God, she was going to be sick.

Gradually, she tensed her muscles, working her hands into fists before easing them again. Bandages had been wrapped around her left arm, still firmly in place. She had nearly anticipated them to come loose – they always did when she did them –, but the woman who had taken care of her wounds seemed to have done a good job at it. (She had looked at Merlin sternly up and down and told him that he should be getting more sleep; Darja had decided right then that she liked her.)

The injury had swollen overnight, radiating warmth. She was positive that it would heal, hopefully sooner than later. She couldn't need anything inconveniencing her. This wouldn't have been the last time she had fought for her life. She just hoped she didn't have to shoot dogs again. Or any other animal.

She folded back the blanket, her legs an inch or two short of touching the ground, staring into the room, not knowing what to do. She figured, she should get up and find some clothes and then find Merlin to ask him about the information they had retained from the laptop … if there was any. What if it all had been for nothing? What if that had been the trap all along, luring them into a dangerous situation and have them get away with nothing valuable at all? Their enemy had already shown how well they knew about each of their steps and that they could kill them any time they wanted. Why would they go to such lengths then, if it could be that easy?

It didn't make sense. Maybe that was the point of it. This wasn't as easy as finding the person responsible and shooting them, this wasn't a hit. There was more to it. But what? In all honesty, she was sick and tired of trying to get twisted people like that. She was sick and tired of games. She was sick and tired of feeling like a chess piece, arranged and pushed around, because some asshole thought torture was in need. Sure, she understood anger. She understood hate. She understood the desire to kill someone and she understood the satisfaction that came with it, but she was all for a quick death. Not torture. That was giving these people much more of her time than they deserved. This, right here and now, felt a little too much like torture for her tastes.

Sighing, she ran a hand through her hair. No use thinking about it. She wanted nothing more than to flip this damn board, but she had to get off that thing first, and unless she knew where it was located, she couldn't.

Darja swallowed her anger and got up, testing her legs. The ache in her right leg returned, numb and fraying at the edges, a distant echo of a memory. Heat pulsed in the other, teeth again digging into her flesh. Both held her weight. She stood for a moment, slowing her breaths, until she trusted her body to carry her safely as she paced around the room.

It was alright. It would heal, she'd get better. It was one of the few certainties she had in her life and there was something strangely comforting about it, knowing that it all was just temporarily.

She wished she could say the same about her current situation and the too many thoughts; she needed to move before she thought for too long and got herself into a corner, with her back to the wall – maybe it wasn't as bad as she feared, maybe it was worse, maybe it was something in between. The truth was that it didn't matter. The truth was that she'd get herself out of it. The truth was that she wouldn't let anyone have the victory over her. If Jack had taught her anything, it was to keep on fighting. If he had not, she would not be here.

Darja circled the room a couple more times, aware that she shouldn't be pushing her limits when she didn't want to re-open the wounds. Eventually, she stopped in the middle, trying to keep her mind steady as the tremble started in her fingers, the warmth slowly draining from them. The memories wanted to be remembered, sick of being ignored.

They wanted to get out of the dark corner she kept them crammed in, they wanted to ruin her day, they wanted to remind her why morphine had been her anchor. The physical part of it had never been a problem; surely, he scar did what all scars occasionally did: hurt and twitch and pull when the weather changed. But the scar on her mind had not healed with her body. Everywhere she went, it kept haunting her, ghosts whispering and turning her dreams into nightmares, making her keep her distance so that no one could get close enough to see them.

It was fucked up, she realized. Ylvi had once suggested that she might was in need of therapy. She had just brushed her off back then, after all, how was that supposed to play out? A hitman going to therapy was basically asking for some kind of disaster to happen. Now, Darja figured that her friend had been right but she hadn't wanted to hear any of it. Broken hearts were a terrible affliction to have when you were young.

There was a knock. She didn't trust her voice enough to answer. The door slid open after a moment. Merlin stood in the threshold, a frown forming on his face as he studied her.

"Should I come back later?"

"No," she replied and swallowed, trying to keep the tremble under control. It didn't have anything to do with him. "It's alright."

Doubt crossed his face but he stepped inside anyway, pulling the door shut behind him, slowly, steadily, lingering at the other end of the room and making her wonder if she should say something. Was he waiting for her to change her mind? Was he waiting for her to tell him whether it was alright to come closer?

"How are your injuries doing?" he asked in a soft voice.

"Well enough," she answered, smoke settling in her nose and mouth. There was no fire here. Just her imagination.

He nodded, then hesitant as if he was attempting to word one of these many things that always went unspoken between them. She didn't know how to phrase them either.

"What did the laptop turn up?" she questioned, saying the first thing that crossed her mind. Somehow she wished she hadn't spoken at all.

"Later," he said like they weren't running short on time; the air was getting low, there wasn't enough room to breathe left. Gradually, he approached her, his gaze promising her to stop if she indicated that she wanted him to – she didn't know what she wanted. The ash was still on her tongue and she felt sick, but it wasn't that bad and she did trust him. He had shown her that she could.

The tremble returned suddenly and she sat down on the bed, wordlessly accepting the medical supplies she hadn't realized he was carrying. He seated himself on the chair, silence settling between them, heavy with words neither of them knew, waiting to be addressed one day. Not today.

A moment passed and she let out a breath she hadn't been aware of holding in, as he pulled something from a pocket of his suit, offering it to her. A pair of glasses. Round-shaped with a black frame, different from the one he had given her before. An individual model, she realized.

Her heart stuttered in her chest as she reached out to take them. Smooth and light, certainly lighter than the pair she had worn the last night.

Merlin cleared his throat, seeming uneasy now. Maybe they were too close, maybe …

"Try them on," he said, encouraging her with a smile not as certain. Honestly, she didn't think she had ever seen him in that state of nervousness. Something between the two of them had changed.

Having glanced at him, she slowly unfolded them before pushing them up the bridge of her nose, blinking. The weight was still unfamiliar but not entirely uncomfortable. The other end of the room was sharp now. She didn't know words anymore. This was easy to understand, wasn't it? It was.

And, yet, it was strange knowing that she mattered so much to him. She had known that she did, certainly, but between him caring and him crafting a pair of glasses specifically for her was a difference. It wasn't the world, but she had never asked for the world anyway.

Her mouth had run dry. She didn't think she could manage English. He'd understand Russian. Or German. Or whatever language she could manage – there was comfort in that.

" _Spasibo_ ," she said eventually, her own mother tongue so foreign from her lips. She hadn't spoken it in a long time for something so personal.

He smiled, if only briefly, the corners of his mouth tugging upwards into something gentle, sending a sputtering burst of warmth through her chest.

She inhaled slowly, hands coiling in her lap; she had expected a question. She had expected it for a long time. The weight of it was crushing her, the weight of not knowing if she'd answer at all.

"You don't have to tell me," he said.

She turned her head to look at him, arching her eyebrows. She knew she didn't have to. She didn't have to do anything. Besides, he was a smart man. He had probably long put two and two together. She didn't have to ask him for anything. She didn't have to ask him to understand. He already did.

She could just pretend it was one of these unspoken things that lingered between them and be done with it, never breathing a word of it to him, never telling him the whole horror of it. He trusted her regardless of it, he wasn't demanding her to reveal it – and yet … she didn't know what to do.

"I know," she replied, swallowing, still looking at him. "I know."

He frowned, sensing her hesitation, but stayed silent – she couldn't say whether she wanted him to speak. Maybe, maybe not; it was the one thing that she had never truly revealed to anyone before. Working alongside other hitmen had advantages.

She just … she didn't know. That was the problem. Darja trusted him with her life and she did think she also trusted him with more than that, but it would be like tearing the wound back open, reliving all of it again. And, there was no denying it, she was scared of what might come out of that. Everything, nothing, would it even matter?

"I think I want you to know," she said after a moment, palms covered in nervous sweat. Her fingers grew cold again.

"For which reason?" he asked, surprise slipping across his face before he could conceal it. "You shouldn't feel obliged to."

"I don't," she said, calmly returning his gaze, thinking of the occasional stuttering warmth in her chest and his rare smiles and his patience with her and how he cared.

"I want you to know," she repeated, struggling with the words; she was plucking them from all the unspoken ones and they sat strangely on her tongue, "because I trust you." She looked at him again. "Not as a form of repayment, not as a secret to keep you intervened, rather as …", her hands made a gesture, something vague, something hovering between them, something meaning everything and nothing, "I don't know how worse it will get. I assume there will be days where it's all pain and days where it's all memories. There will probably tiny details that will remind me of what I've been through and I won't be able to tell. It's-" What was the word? The expression? She didn't know if it even existed. She might as well was making it up right now.

"Some sort of lifeline?" he suggested, watching her close enough that she couldn't tell what that tone in his voice was.

"In a way," she agreed with a slow nod. "I don't want to rely on your help, which doesn't mean that I don't want it, I … want to solve my problems myself but I'm not sure if I always can."

"I see," he said and cleared his throat, his voice had left him. "I don't know whether I can be what you want me to be, but I can promise to try."

"You've been enough, Merlin," she reminded him. "No need to put yourself down."

She caught him by surprise; it took a second until his shoulders eased.

"Thank you," he said so gently she wondered if he'd shatter when she breathed. "Strength has very little to do with how much a person can endure. You're strong, Darja."

"Thanks," she said and managed a smile of her own, even if part of her felt like crying all of a sudden. What was so special about it? Other people had cared about her before.

There was a moment of silence between them, drawing itself into eternity, rare in its way to make each of them vulnerable; they both were suddenly glass, thin, frail, fragile glass, two people without their shells and armor.

"Whenever you're ready," he said quietly.

She nodded. "I'll try to skip the details," she said, knowing that her mind wouldn't skip them.

The frown returned to his face, she couldn't remember when it had left.

Carefully, she drew in a breath before she pushed it out of her lungs, looking at her hands. "The core problem is," she began, "that people are assholes. Greedy bastards taking pleasure in watching other people suffer, making them miserable to further their own lives. They use them. They drive them deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole and then crush them when they grow tired." Her hands curled into fists. It didn't feel right to see them unharmed, healed.

"My mother wanted to be an actress," she said. "So she moved from the village where her parents lived to Moscow, even landing a job shortly after. The guy told her that, with how pretty she was, she'd make it far, if she got trough a rough beginning." She swallowed. "He lied. He pressured her to do things she didn't want to do since she needed the money. He caught her in the net of prostitution where she couldn't get out."

She knew he was looking at her with a sense of dread in his eyes; there was a sense of dread in the pit of her stomach too.

"Somewhen, I was born," she said. "And, sure enough, I was an accident, of sorts. But my mother still loved me. She didn't blame me that she couldn't get rid of me, couldn't give me away. She wanted me to do better. I tried. Kids are mean." She exhaled. "We never really had money. Never enough. We turned off electricity and water to save on bills. We went hungry. I was a kid, I didn't understand much of it, but I knew that I loved her and that she was crying a lot."

She inhaled. She hadn't known a person needed that much air. "One day, two men knocked at the door," she was sure her voice was going to fail her, she _hoped_ it was going to fail her, "they wanted money. We didn't have any. They were angry. My mother pleaded with them for just a little more time. And, they said, if she couldn't pay, they'd made sure the debts were paid one way or another."

She dug her nails into her palms. Her hands were shaking too much. "I was thirteen, I looked a lot like my mother," she muttered. "I was scared."

"You were a child," he said, somewhere between shock and anger. She appreciated it.

"In a way," she continued, a rough laugh escaping her, "the fire saved me. A candle tumbled over when my mother got up to stand in their way. Within a second, everything was burning. I don't remember much, being honest. I remember the pain. I remember that my mother saved me. I remember seeing her die. And then, the next thing I know, is a man by the window in a hospital, offering me any kind of future I could think of."

"And you became a hitman," he concluded. He said it without accusing her, without blaming her. But he didn't understand.

"Yes," she answered, not looking at him. "He didn't force me. I had a choice. He kept asking me. He kept telling me what it meant, that I might not take well to having blood on my hands, that I would be putting my life on the line, that I would get to see the ugliest sides of mankind, that, perhaps, I wasn't made for it, no matter how much I wanted to."

"But you insisted," he replied. "Why?"

"Maybe it's a personal thing," she suggested with a shrug of her shoulders, barely baring to look at him for a second. "I know you're not a fan of killing people unless you have to. I get that. But growing up in Russia doesn't give you the luxury." She released the tension in her shoulders. She didn't want to be angry at him. They had lead two entirely different lives; he'd lived through the Cold War, she had grown up in the years following the collapse of the Soviet Union. He might have come from the streets or from some noble house, she came from the farthest place down.

"I was hurt," she told him, "upset. I wanted revenge. I didn't want any other girl to suffer like that. I wanted to change things. Growing up, I saw that the people in power weren't better than these men. Putin didn't care. Other presidents didn't. I realized, that if I were to become a police officer or soldier or judge, that I would just be part of a corrupted system with my hands bound." She swallowed. She didn't want to be afraid of his opinion. She didn't want to fear to say the wrong thing. She wanted to be honest and she trusted him and yet she was scared of losing his trust.

"I realized that, if I became an activist, my own government would have me murdered eventually or locked away in a prison to die of mysterious circumstances," she said. "I realized that I would be on the run if I spoke out in public and advocated for change. So I decided to hunt them down myself."

"So you set your own rules?" he asked. "Only killing those who deserve it?"

"Yes," she answered. "Murderers, traffickers, rapists, enablers. Criminals laws won't or can't touch. I don't claim moral authority; it makes me a murderer myself."

"You did go after us," he noted, more to himself than to her.

"I thought, after all these years, I knew when I was being lied to," she replied. "I didn't. You've read the whole thing yourself. The wording was careful. Someone wanted me to think you were the bad guys."

"Yes," he answered in a heavy voice, struggling with something.

"Look," she said, the air rushing too quickly out of her lungs, "I know you don't agree with all of it-"

"Darja," he said, making her stop before he even finished speaking, "I don't think you're a bad person." The corners of his mouth twitched. "I understand that we have our differences but we always had and, while it is not something that can be overlooked in the long run, I do hope it won't divide us."

Something about it made her heart race in her chest. "Neither do I," she replied.

Another moment of silence passed, heavy again, before he rose to his feet, clearing his throat.

"I'll get dressed," she said before he could speak.


End file.
